Updated for 2022: The Ultimate Try-Hard Build for Below level 50 Emperor

[Sergen]

DISCLAIMER: I am not helping trophy hunters by playing the game with them in the below level 50 campaign, all 18 of my characters on this game have surpassed level 50 for the purpose of doing crafting writs at the highest level. Also I recommend only trying to follow this build once you've experienced The Elder Scrolls Online as much as you can, don't try to make Emperor one of your first trophies or you'll be making it much more stressful for yourself. 

 

Here I am again with another thread about The Elder Scrolls Online. This time I am showing off the potential for a person to be able to solo their way to becoming the Emperor on Elder Scrolls Online. However, there are some fairly BS requirements you need to be able to meet in order to make this happen for yourself independently without the help of other players. I must admit, theory-crafting below level 50 builds has been a fun thing for me to be doing recently because I have researched enough traits on various gear pieces in order to craft gear for the below level 50 campaign. This thread isn't very new player friendly, you probably won't be able to solo your way to Emperor using my build in your first week playing the game and as a new player you probably won't understand the gear setup. But at least this thread may help people who have experience with this game who are afraid of Emperor due to needing to rely on a group to help, you won't need a group if the keeps you're taking aren't being defended by try-hards or an Emperor of another alliance. This thread isn't going to explain how you earn AP in an alliance war campaign, there are hundreds of external sources that do that already, it is explaining how you could set up a character to solo keeps in a campaign. Becoming Emperor requires you to be #1 in your alliance while your alliance is holding all 6 inner keeps around the Imperial City, in that case you will often need to take those 6 keeps from another alliance who has the title.

 

The rest of this thread is going to explain passive skills, gear, attribute points and Mundus Stone. All the gear is crafted, there's absolutely no point farming gear below level 50 so crafted gear is always the best option. Since there's no CP enabled in the below level 50 campaign, that's not going to be explained here.

 

Character Level: 32 (Would work in some degree at level 26 as well, but you'd have less passive skills to use), the levels are this specific because the gear has to be crafted to these levels with your materials.

Mundus Stones: The Lover + The Atronach, if you feel like you're dying too often you can also use The Lady mundus stone for more resistances instead of the lover (Twice-Born Star set)

Buff Food/Drink: Crown Fortifying Meal or Spring-Loaded Infusion

Buff Potion: Level 30 Tri-stat potion of health or Crown Tri-Restoration potion

Attribute Points: Spend them all in Magicka when you level up

Class: Templar

Race: Has been tested using Breton (Daggerfall Covenant) and Dark Elf (Ebonheart Pact). High Elf (Aldmeri Dominion) would also work for this build due to its Magicka bonuses. This means that any alliance's races will be viable for this build without the requirement of purchasing the "Any Race, Any Alliance" bundle. My most recent use of this build was with an Argonian (Ebonheart Pact) which proved very useful because they have better sustain of magicka and stamina if you use potions with it. 

Gear Quality: Purple weapons or gold and body, blue or green jewellery

 

Below is every passive skill I have invested points into. If you don't have enough points by the time you are level 32 on your character, you can collect skyshards in the zones that are available to you.

 

Aedric Spear: 2/2 Piercing Spear, 2/2 Spear Wall, 1/2 Burning Light

Dawn’s Wrath: 2/2 Enduring Rays, 2/2 Prism, 2/2 Illuminate

Restoring Light: 2/2 Mending, 2/2 Sacred Ground, 1/2 Light Weaver

Destruction Staff: 2/2 Tri Focus, 2/2 Penetrating Magic, 2/2 Elemental Force, 1/2 Ancient Knowledge

Light Armor: 2/2 Evocation, 1/2 Spell Warding

Heavy Armor: 3/3 Resolve, 2/2 Constitution, 2/2 Juggernaut

Racial Passives: Whatever you can afford on your race of choice

 

Below is my gear setup and this is the part where the term "try-hard" really comes in, because the sets being used are Heartland Conqueror (7 trait crafted set) and Twice-Born Star (9 trait crafted set) along with 2 pieces of Death's Wind Head & Shoulders (2 trait crafted set). 9 traits would take approximately 70 days of real-life waiting to research per gear piece, this is also considering having all the passive skills maxed out in the respective crafting skill lines. The reason for these set choices are as follows: Heartland Conqueror's 5th piece bonus allows you to get double the penetration from using the Sharpened trait, considering the fact that PvP players usually build for high resistances it's good to be able to break through those with higher penetration. Twice-Born Star is used because it lets you use 2 mundus stones, which almost emulates using a monster set in below level 50 PvP, nothing else beat it in my opinion. All of this crafted gear has been crafted at level 32, level 32 gear will last until around level 40 before scaling badly and needing to be replaced. In brackets is the trait being used on the gear. Reinforced on the head, chest and legs is beneficial as those pieces offer the most resistances and using Reinforced on top of that makes you harder to kill, Divines on smaller pieces is good for buffing the effectiveness of your mundus stones. Defending is used on one of the staves to increase the resistances of the character, once again serving the purpose of being harder to kill. Every enchantment on the gear is crafted for level 30, since there's no enchantments specifically for level 32, level 30 enchantments become crap at level 40. "Light" is used to describe light armor, "Heavy" is used to describe heavy armor, this specific setup uses 5 pieces of heavy armor and 2 pieces of light armor.

 

Main Hand: Heartland Conqueror Lightning Staff (Sharpened) – Shock Damage Glyph

Back-up: Heartland Conqueror Ice Staff (Defending) – Absorb Magicka Glyph

Head: Heavy Death’s Wind (Reinforced) – Max Health Enchant

Chest: Heavy Twice-Born Star (Reinforced) – Max Health Enchant

Shoulders: Light Death’s Wind (Divines) – Max Magicka Enchant

Waist: Light Twice-Born Star (Divines) – Max Magicka Enchant

Hands: Heavy Twice-Born Star (Divines) – Max Magicka Enchant

Legs: Heavy Twice-Born Star (Reinforced) – Max Health Enchant

Feet: Heavy Twice-Born Star (Divines) – Max Magicka Enchant

Necklace: Heartland Conqueror (Arcane) – Magicka Recovery Enchant

Rings: Heartland Conqueror  (Arcane) – Magicka Recovery on both

 

Now that gear has been explained, as well as the passives it is time to explain which skills go on my bars. Weapon switching is essential at times to utilize all of your important skills while in battle.

Skill Bar 1 (Main Hand):  Puncturing Sweep (Aedric Spear), Elemental Drain (Destruction Staff), Toppling Charge (Aedric Spear), Inner Light (Get Mages Guild to Rank 2 with lore books), Restoring Aura or Repentance (Restoring Light), Crescent Sweep Ultimate Ability in the Aedric Spear Skill Line

 

Skill Bar 2 (Back-Up): Unstable Wall of Elements (Destruction Staff), Crushing Shock (Destruction Staff), Honor the Dead (Restoring Light), Unstoppable (Heavy Armor Skill Line, requires 5 pieces), Living Dark (Dawn's Wrath), Rite of Passage Ultimate Ability

 

With this build, to solo a keep you must first take all of the resources that are around the keep you want to take, these resources are the three tiny icons around a keep. Resource taking is essential for weakening the keep's AI as well as the doors that you need to destroy at the keep, to take a resource easily you must first run into the tower and kill the Mage that is stood there, then finally go down to the flag and kill the AI that is there, with my gear it will be simple enough to do that. You must purchase at least 6 Ballista's before going to a keep, place 3 of them close to each other and keep rotating between each ballista, shooting at the door. The Ballista method is shown in my video of the keep being taken solo, I would estimate it taking around 35 minutes to solo the entire keep including the resources, 5 minutes per resource and 20 minutes for the main keep building, as a solo player taking the flags at these places takes a while to do, which is incredibly tedious. Inside a keep you only have to flip the flag half way before moving onto the next flag, the keep is taken when your alliance has majority control over the flags. 

 

Below is a video of myself taking a keep solo within the below level 50 campaign, done with my Dark Elf Templar.

 

Below level 50 Battlegrounds Deathmatch gameplay (Gear used here was Armor of the Seducer + Magnus' Gift, which is inferior to the above setup, but still an option if you've researched too few traits for the above setup): 

 

This thread was made to show that it is possible to solo keeps in Cyrodiil, I haven't seen any other videos of players on this game taking keeps using their own siege weapons and going in through the front like I have done, this is not meant to be a brag but rather showing that technically you could solo your way to Emperor if you prepare yourself as I have done with this build. Magicka Templar isn't exactly a requirement to pull this off, it is just the class I am most comfortable with using, I am sure a theory crafter with knowledge of other classes could make a build viable for soloing keeps with other classes. I must say that if I was able to do this during my first Emperor attempt, I'd be able to get the trophy easily because the campaign was regularly dead enough for the keeps to be there for the taking, it was unfortunate nobody was around to help me take them at the time and I had no knowledge of the game prior. This thread may be a mess but I will proof-read it and tweak it later to try to be as understandable as possible.

Edited December 31, 2022 by Sergen

[GT__Jedi]

Excellent, excellent thread.  Really appreciate all the information.  Going to check my High Elf Sorcerer and see where we differ on equipment and points.  Looks like I'll need to pay for ESO Plus to get back to those crafting stations.  Is it possible to get an idea on your skill rotation?

[Sergen]

1 minute ago, PermaFox said:

Excellent, excellent thread.  Really appreciate all the information.  Going to check my High Elf Sorcerer and see where we differ on equipment and points.  Looks like I'll need to pay for ESO Plus to get back to those crafting stations.  Is it possible to get an idea on your skill rotation?

 

Considering the enemies in a campaign are just trash enemies and not bosses, the "rotation" would be to use Unstable Wall of Elements on the enemies at the flag to cause an off balance effect on the enemies and do damage over time. Use Toppling Charge on the mender enemies while they are healing their allies because that also stops them from doing it as well as sets them off balance and use puncturing sweeps to finish them off. Stuff like Soul Trap, Force Shock and Eclipse are more for the PvP aspect of this game, being damage over time and ranged skills, Eclipse is especially good for the damage reflection against people. I'm not sure what kind of skills you would be able to unlock at level 32 as a Sorcerer, so unfortunately I can't give much advice in that avenue, but I can imagine you can bring 2 pets to the battle which will be annoying to people considering their skills will attack your pets a lot of the time rather than you.

[GT__Jedi]

Thank you.  Right now I'm running 2 pets to solo as much as I can.  I've been interested in starting a new toon, Templar, and with your information looks like I'll be working on that this week.  Plus, I've been wanting to get away from the pet build.

[GT__Jedi]

@Sergen  When testing this build with Breton and Dark Elf, did you notice any advantages of either race? Right now I'm going to try the build using a Breton Templar that is already at Level 32 (Crafter), respecing the skills.

[Sergen]

57 minutes ago, PermaFox said:

@Sergen  When testing this build with Breton and Dark Elf, did you notice any advantages of either race? Right now I'm going to try the build using a Breton Templar that is already at Level 32 (Crafter), respecing the skills.

 

Breton is probably better because you don’t max out racial passives until level 50. The benefit of Breton is magicka recovery and a lower cost to magicka abilities, whereas a Dark Elf has weapon and spell damage. Either way, both work well for achieving your goals. 

[GT__Jedi]

31 minutes ago, Sergen said:

 

Breton is probably better because you don’t max out racial passives until level 50. The benefit of Breton is magicka recovery and a lower cost to magicka abilities, whereas a Dark Elf has weapon and spell damage. Either way, both work well for achieving your goals. 

Thanks.  Going to roll a new toon as the crafter is at Level 50 and don't want to pull those points.  Will be good to start again with a new setup.

[CaptainMonkster]

I have been tempted to retry this trophy so i will give your recommendations a go! 

[BellandDog]

Well, If I ever try to play this game after finishing some games on my backlog I might do this or something similar

 

[Sergen]

On 11/03/2020 at 2:37 PM, BellandDog said:

Well, If I ever try to play this game after finishing some games on my backlog I might do this or something similar

 

It’s not going to be something you’re capable of accomplishing just by casually starting the game as a beginner. The Coldharbour’s Favorite set if you make it yourself will take a minimum of around 40-80 days of real life waiting time to research the traits on enough gear, depending on the gear you want to wear. This thread is rather showing that soloing keeps is possible but I wouldn’t expect a trophy hunter to just waltz in and be able to follow what I’ve done with the build immediately. Magicka Templar is something I spent around 1000 hours playing before I ever tried to take it to the below level 50 campaign. 

[ShadowManuX]

I've been playing this game for a couple of years and the only character I used had all of the crafting traits (except for nirnhoned) I'll give this guide a shot since I only need emperor and imperial motif for the plat. And since normal campaigns now reset at 30 days instead of 7. I'll let you guys know my luck (and I'll also try to convince some of my guildies to help but they are not into trophy hunting xD) 

[Sergen]

12 minutes ago, ShadowManuX said:

I've been playing this game for a couple of years and the only character I used had all of the crafting traits (except for nirnhoned) I'll give this guide a shot since I only need emperor and imperial motif for the plat. And since normal campaigns now reset at 30 days instead of 7. I'll let you guys know my luck (and I'll also try to convince some of my guildies to help but they are not into trophy hunting xD) 

 

The below level 50 campaign, which this build was designed for is a campaign that resets once every 7 days. This wouldn't be viable in any other campaigns.

[ShadowManuX]

4 minutes ago, Sergen said:

 

The below level 50 campaign, which this build was designed for is a campaign that resets once every 7 days. This wouldn't be viable in any other campaigns.

I know that. What I meant (it seems that the text got deleted) is that before campaigns reset in a week except for one which reset at 30 days. Now the game got updated and all campaigns reset at 30 days except for below lvl 50. That's why I said that I'll give this guide a shot, since I gave this trophy for lost as I had to wait 30 days in normal campaigns to try to rush the emperor but now it will be different n.n/

[Sergen]

8 minutes ago, ShadowManuX said:

I know that. What I meant (it seems that the text got deleted) is that before campaigns reset in a week except for one which reset at 30 days. Now the game got updated and all campaigns reset at 30 days except for below lvl 50. That's why I said that I'll give this guide a shot, since I gave this trophy for lost as I had to wait 30 days in normal campaigns to try to rush the emperor but now it will be different n.n/

 

I do actually have a stronger build than this, but if other players could see it then it would probably be used by people who devote their life to fucking up the below level 50 campaign, so I am holding back the public knowledge of what I am able to make so I can out perform this build if I come across it if I feel like playing below level 50 again.

 

Here's a demonstration of my new build in a battlegrounds match: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xshtS_mWm6s

 

However the build in the thread is still solid enough to take out most people in the below level 50 PvP as the below videos show:

 

1v3 Victory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oW-SsD81uIg&feature=youtu.be

1v4 Keep Defense: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5bftlkAbx0&feature=youtu.be

Emperor Slayer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJV-jgvA6Vs&feature=youtu.be

 

At least the videos I've linked prove its usefulness in the actual PvP. Albeit I don't consider anything done in below level 50 to be skill based as it is just a bunch of try hards who gate keep it and they can't compete at their own level.

Edited June 22, 2020 by Sergen

[Sydoki]

@Sergen Great read! A build of this scale indeed would require a lot of prep work but it's definitely worth it. A couple of questions which I feel like I already know the answers to:
 

• Would the same items build (or any other builds) be applicable to Level 50 (No CP) campaigns? Or does the level 50 scaling messes it up? Asking because I'd much rather attempt it on my character (570 Nightblade Sorc) than creating a new one. Not the worst thing in the world, but having that sweet Emperor outfit is to die for
• Does that mean that you would essentially put yourself on a timer once hitting level 32 in terms of gaining XP and levels? I mean, I'd imagine there's no way to stop your leveling, and PvP campaigns give plenty of XP

[iamdrdoog]

So far the build’s been dominating, I’m now crafting the sets and I just realised the shoulders are medium. Is there any reason for that? Would it not work better if they were light or heavy?

[Sergen]

3 hours ago, iamdrdoog said:

So far the build’s been dominating, I’m now crafting the sets and I just realised the shoulders are medium. Is there any reason for that? Would it not work better if they were light or heavy?

 

If you unlock medium armor passives they can be beneficial, but I guess you don't need to worry about that below level 50 and should opt for a light or heavy armor piece there.

[kandbw1138]

Hello, I really enjoyed the build and was able to solo a keep (not able to be top of leaderboard or take all 6 at once, sigh).  Unfortunately, I have leveled my toon past 50 and cannot try this myself.  You post a video of battlegrounds - would this build be good to attempt Triple Threat and Most Valuable Combatant?  Does Capture the Flag would require a lot of teamwork to get three at once?  Since you can only queue solo you really need to be the best on your team since you are also competing with them.  Thanks!

[Sergen]

1 hour ago, kandbw1138 said:

Hello, I really enjoyed the build and was able to solo a keep (not able to be top of leaderboard or take all 6 at once, sigh).  Unfortunately, I have leveled my toon past 50 and cannot try this myself.  You post a video of battlegrounds - would this build be good to attempt Triple Threat and Most Valuable Combatant?  Does Capture the Flag would require a lot of teamwork to get three at once?  Since you can only queue solo you really need to be the best on your team since you are also competing with them.  Thanks!

 

I've earned more than 3,000 points many times in Deathmatch with this build and Triple Threat is rather a case of getting to the relic before other people on your team do, you'll get to tank through people's damage when you do attempt to grab the relic and take it back and for the most part below level 50 players often don't pay attention to the objective. Using this build for now will be viable for those two trophies you've mentioned, however it may get nerfed soon with the fact that Zenimax wants to add a 3 second cooldown on AoE abilities and puncturing sweeps is classed as one of those and will be affected. The players on PC are going through the public test server for those PvP changes and hopefully they don't go through altogether otherwise it's gonna ruin the Templar class in that environment.

[kandbw1138]

Patch 27 drops Sept 1, right? 

 

Have you heard this joke?

 

What's Zenimax's skill rotation?  Buff a set, nerf a set, buff a set, nerf a set.

[Datboy1991]

On 7/4/2020 at 5:02 PM, Sydoki said:

@Sergen Great read! A build of this scale indeed would require a lot of prep work but it's definitely worth it. A couple of questions which I feel like I already know the answers to:
 

• Would the same items build (or any other builds) be applicable to Level 50 (No CP) campaigns? Or does the level 50 scaling messes it up? Asking because I'd much rather attempt it on my character (570 Nightblade Sorc) than creating a new one. Not the worst thing in the world, but having that sweet Emperor outfit is to die for
• Does that mean that you would essentially put yourself on a timer once hitting level 32 in terms of gaining XP and levels? I mean, I'd imagine there's no way to stop your leveling, and PvP campaigns give plenty of XP

 

At level 50 CP 160, you have far more diverse gear options so it becomes a long winded conversation. You are also going to be facing more experienced competition. 

 

The answer to the second question is yes. If you are following around people that aren’t in your group, you can let them kill most of the guards then stand on the flag to reduce XP gains, but you will still eventually hit lvl 50 if you are trying to grind out emp. Also, you outlevel your gear fairly quickly which can be really annoying. 

[iamdrdoog]

For the couldhabour’s favourite set there’s 2 rings, the necklace, the main weapon and the back up but only one of the equipped weapon’s set counts. Am I doing something wrong or is this normal?

Edited August 4, 2020 by iamdrdoog

[redheroes]

Hi @Sergen

 

Thanks for this awesome build! I managed to get Emperor last night with this build.

[Sergen]

2 minutes ago, redheroes said:

Hi @Sergen

 

Thanks for this awesome build! I managed to get Emperor last night with this build.

 

Congratulations for that! It's actually pretty outdated by my current standards, but I've left it here because the effort to post an update isn't worth my time because the current build I posted is enough for people to do it with as you've proven yourself. Glad to see someone take it out and prove its viability over 2 years after I posted it hahaha. 

[TehTeribad]

Hey, am really looking into building this and giving <50 cp a go (or three). Would the updated version take a long time to build/write? If the gear used is the same would it be ok if I craft a set for lvl 26 and one for lvl 34/36? (I’d be reusing these on diffrent chars once I outlevel the campaign). Hopefully I’ll be able to get it and help others do so (have a psprofiles session open for trophies) will post here if I acutally do manage it. Thank you for this amazing guide and for your fishing guide which made  Master Fisher a breeze (40ish hourse breeze haha)

 

 

A few days later I finally got it, will write a more detailed post with the experice which was amazing (but now I need my sleep)

Edited January 21, 2022 by TehTeribad