Welcome to the ESO Azandar Al-Cybiades Ranged DPS builds! Azandar Al-Cybiades is an older Redguard Arcanist, who becomes a little of a cross between a father figure and an eccentric professor mentor figure to the player character. Players will quickly discover that he has a hyper-focus on his endless pursuit of knowledge.
ByPixel|Updated for Necrom Chapter, U38 on June 3rd, 2023
Should you use Azandar Al-Cybiades DPS build?
Companions, just like players come with class presets. Azandar Al-Cybiades Arcanist builds work, at some of the hardest content in the game and can work for you!
How to unlock Azandar, and where do I find him? Azandar Al-Cybiades quest, “The Fateweaver Key”.
You can find Azandar in the Apocrypha zone, the entrance is tricky to find, but you can check ourguide for more info. Once there, head to the Cipher’s Midden village, he’ll be waiting for you next to the bridge.
Follow the quest(around 20-30 min) he gives you. Upon completion, he’ll be added to your collection and available to summon at any time.

After you complete the quest, you may find Azandar and all unlocked companions in your collections menu. Press the default key “U” on your keyboard or go to the collections tab, pick Allies from the list and then Companions.
Progression
Companions are similar to players and here are some areas of focus for you while working through optimizing your companion.
Obtain multiple gear sets:You’ll want flexible options once you hit the end game, even if you plan on leaving him as a DPS. You can find gear by looting defeated enemies or in various chests and boxes, almost everywhere in the game. Or you can go to any town Armor and Fine Garments store and pick up companion gear, light, medium and heavy. I’d also go to woodworker and weapon smith and pick up sword and shield, and various staffs. Swap a gear or weapons and level skill lines, because you never know if you want to switch!
Combat Level:Start levelling up your companion. Companions level up similar to a player, by killing enemies and eventually reaching level 20 (currently max). So you’re able to grind with your companion(grinding video click). The exception are guilds’ skill lines (Mages Guild, Fighters Guild, Undaunted), to level them up you need to complete guilds’ daily quests. You can find them in Grahtwood(map click), Stormhaven(map click), and Deshaan(map click).
Focus on Guild Skill Lines:You’ll want to prioritise completing the guide-specific daily quests in order to unlock the most powerful skills in the game.

Gear:Now start collecting pieces of gear to optimize your DPS. The best trait for companion DPS is Aggressive, increasing damage done. Also, The Shattering (Penetration) and the Focused (Critical Strike Chance) are good choices.
Azandar Al-Cybiades and Player Best Build Combo
ESO companions are a great way to have a helper in battle, but they can also be easily killed. This build will increase their survivability and your questing or even dungeon experience.
The secret is a five-piece craftable set from the Necrom ChapterTelvanni Efficiency. This combination reduces the cooldown on companions’ abilities allowing them to heal, evade and defend easier.

Here are examples of how it’ll help your builds:
To further augment this effect, you can combine the armor trait “quicken.” This armor trait at purple quality gives a 2.6% reduction on ability cooldowns per piece with 5.2% on both weapons. So the new cooldown for the Vanish skill becomes only 5.7 seconds! Everything the companion does becomes radically improved.
To further aid in this, Isobel has a buff to light and heavy attacks after using penetrating strikes. Bastion has a buff for light and heavy attacks as well. In fact, each companion has some aid and utility to provide, and the reduction in cooldown means nearly 100% uptime giving them much greater survivability and utility.

How to modify your build?
We suggest a modifiedheavy attack/oakensoul build. You will have high health, mitigation and damage with the recommended gear sets. You always equip 5 medium Telvanni’s on your body and use Sergent’s Mail for heavy attack damage along with the Empower buff from Oakensoul.
Azandar Al-Cybiades Ranged DPS build
Companion abilities work on a cooldown system unlike players and often have 16 seconds before the skill can be used again. Thus, placing a skill on the first spot, vs the last has a great impact on its frequency.
An example:
Mageskills – The Destruction Staff (Inferno Staff)
Sniper skills – the Bow
All medium armor gear pieces give the best possible damage potential. The frugal shopper will look to Shattering or Focused rather than Aggressive, but for raw damage Aggressive performs the best. You can use the mix of the tree and still have great results:
Companion DPS Traits Priority:
The Destruction Staff (Inferno Staff) gear setup
The Bow gear setup
Ranged DPS companion Tips and Tricks
Control:Just like commanding a pet, you’ll need to hit the default key “Y” and the left mouse to attack or the right mouse to return (no PC). Companions don’t know when to move out of bad AoE’s or mechanics. So you as the player must make this a priority.
Combat:You’ll want to start the combat first, while your companion will stay out of enemy range and deal damage to the enemies from the distance. Just like players, companions have multiple buffs and AoE synergies. So stay close enough to your companion to receive those buffs, but don’t too close, so your companion will be safe behind you.
Ranged DPS:Make sure Azandar will always stay at a safe distance. She is less likely to die in combat as a ranged damage dealer.
Provide shield and healing:Every class or combat style has some type of shield or damage reduction. Pick at least one extra shield or protection skill for your companion. This small bit of protection will help your companion survive. That’s why the armor skill line is so vital to prioritise and use. You may slot extra off healing ability to help your companion survive.
Make companion your own! These tips can help you out but the end result is up to you. Experiment, try things outside of the box and meta ideas. You’ll be surprised at just how effective these things can be.
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