Summoner - 8 pets - Zauberer Baue PvE - ESO

This build goes all in on using pets. If your goal is to have all your summoned minions do your dirty work, this is how you do that.

Our skill lines are Daedric Summoning, Grave Lord, and Shadow. Daedric Dummoning gets us Summon Twilight Tormentor, Summon Volatile Familiar, and Summon Charged Atronach, which will be our ultimate. We also use Daedric Prey to increase the damage from these three pets. Grave Lord gives us the Skeletal Archer/Skeletal Arcanist, which gives us Major Brutality/Sorcery, and Blighted Blastbones, which is our pseudo-spammable (which counts as a pet mechanically, not just thematically). Shadow grants us access to Dark Shade, which makes it the only other skill line that gives us a non-ultimate pet. Shadowy Disguise gives a more reliable form of Major Savagery/Prophecy, and grants us (and our pets) 10% bonus damage. Unfortunately, the free crit will not be granted to any pets, even Blastbones. It will only apply to weapon attacks, which completely wastes it for us, status procs (Including the guaranteed Diseased from Blastbones), and the explosion from Daedric Prey, which is the biggest hit we have for it. And, as a bonus, Shadow Barrier gives us Major Resolve, completing our set of important major buffs. Elemental Blockade is mostly there to trigger our weapon damage glyph, but we will be applying concussed a lot, so we will also supply off-balance with it.

For our equipment, we are using two lightning staves. Almost all of our damage is direct damage, and most of that is single target, which also means it has a much higher status chance. Since all status effects besides burning, poisoned, and hemorrhage are direct, that boosts those status effects too, making Charged very potent. For the sets, we use the Velothi Ur-Mage's Amulet mythic, as it focuses even more of our damage onto our pets, which exactly what we are after. Unleashed Ritualist is essentially mandatory for this build, though we only have it active on the front bar. That way, we can have Morkuldin on our back bar, which we can trigger by hitting with a light attack on the back bar, and shares a 15 second duration with Elemental Blockade. Note, that the attack must HIT while on the back bar. Which weapon makes the attack doesn't matter if you swap after launching the attack but before it hits. Finally, Maw of the Infernal grants our final pet. It has a 33% chance to trigger on attack, so you will still want to try to weave well, especially when this cooldown and your weapon glyph are available.

As with any builds, you'll want to hit the penetration cap. For overland, this isn't really an issue, but for any harder content, we'll need at least 7170, assuming the tank applies major and minor breach. Dismember grants 3271, Velothi Ur-Mage's Amulet gives 1650, the Piercing non-slotted Champion perk gives 700, and we have to put one piece of Unleashed Ritualist on the body, so that's one piece of light armor, so that's 939. That means we're still 610 penetration short. If you're a Bosmer, you're not short on penetration, just short in general. For everyone else; some tanks will use sets or skills that add additional penetration, though subclassing has made penetration easier to get, making those sets and skills less powerful. Trials are more likely to have that additional amount. It's not a bad idea to get that extra amount yourself, however. The simplest way to do that is to swap out one more piece of armor for a light piece, since the comparative trade is smaller than all the other options for getting it.

The second, more difficult stat to plan for is critical damage. Besides the variance based on what is brought to a group, the rise in popularity of Assassination and Herald of the Tome means more people are getting free boosts to that, reducing the usefulness of group buffs. That isn't to say those won't be around, but it does make it less reliable. I would lean towards having more, which is the biggest benefit of being a Khajiit and using the Shadow. If you are in a trial group that is bringing a lot for you, you could just swap to the Thief before starting.

If playing solo, the easiest, most impactful change is to change to Summon Twilight Matriarch, and maybe swapping your Trainee chestpiece to heavy. Zerith-Var is an ideal companion for this build. He is the only companion who summons a pet, and it's a necromancer pet you don't have access too, AND he's the only companion who can apply Major Breach - in fact, since it lasts 8 seconds and applies Major Breach for 6 seconds with every tick, he can have 100% uptime with some quickened gear, which also lets him keep his pet more. I put him in all quickened gear, with heavy armor and a sword and shield, gave him Provoke, Perigean Spirit, Sepucheral Chill, Atoning Spirit, and either Penance of Lorkhaj or Reverse Entropy from the Mages Guild line.