Recommended PvE Solo Build for ESO Dragonknight

Posted on April 20, 2015 by D. Cobb

The info below is a bit out of date as it refers to the beta. If you happen to be looking for an up-to-date reference for your Dragonknight, I suggest this manual. It includes some killer advice on leveling up, builds, skill rotation, and gold farming.

classes_Dragonknight_mobile

When you are able to equip some of the higher tier abilities for solo questing, this build is feasible for higher level 40-50+. You should be able to take on very large groups without dying with this build.

This is how your ability bar should look like:

Shield Charge
Inferno morphed into Sea of Flames
Inhale morphed into Draw Essence
Dragon Blood for self healing.
Fiery Breath

A simple rotation would be:

Shield Charge
Inferno
Fiery Breath
Start Bashing
Inhale
Blood dragon when in a bind

Dual Wield Skill Rotation

If your preferred role is not a tank but you wish to play DK in a group with friends, or if you wish to be a damage dealer and want to play a Dragonknight, your basic go-to is Dual Wield. This build will not only give you good crowd control, self-healing, and survival abilities, it will also ensure AoE damage across the board. And since the Dunmer (Dark Elf) is the only race with added bonus to experience gain for Dual Wielding, this build works best for them.

The skills on your ability bar for this build should be:

Blood Craze – In this setup, this is your main ability. And since Flurry (your second) is quite expensive, you will need this during those times that Flurry is out.
Flurry – This can ut down your targets very fast and you can consider this to be your main damage ability. It is important to remember, however, not to use it when the NPC is about to attack you. That way, your DPS will not be maximal as it will get interrupted.
Burning Embers – Not only does this DoT have decent damage, it also heals your when its effect ends.
Razor Armor – Get increased armor at the same time as adding physical damage to your attackers . Since you will most likely be under attack by multiple opponents constantly, you will need this more often.
Burning Talons – This can allow you some breathing space by immobilizing nearby enemies, thus getting you out of a bind. If you want enemies to be immobilized in PvP, this works great for immobilizing them. Unlike a mage that can cast stuff to an area, a dual wielder is the center out of which all damage comes from. Therefore, this can help you deal the most damage.

For this build, the rotation are:

Burning Embers – In order for you to get the self heal, you may wany to use this ability first to make sure it lasts until the end.
Blood Craze
Flurry

If you are using Dragon Leap instead of Dragonknight Standard as your ultimate, there is much that can be gained if you decide to use this build for PvP. A simple explanation. Your enemies will usually be smart enough to move out of the Standard’s AoE area fast when in PvP. But they cannot block or dodge the damage from leap. So, leap will still serve you better although the standard can be moved later. Always use the standard for PvE, no exceptions.

The info above is a bit out of date as it refers to the beta. If you happen to be looking for an up-to-date reference for your Dragonknight, I suggest this walkthrough . It includes some killer advice on leveling up, builds, skill rotation, and gold farming.

Dragonknight Guide to PvP Build

Posted on April 18, 2014 by D. Cobb

The Jack of all Trades
This build eliminates the need to re-assign different skills to your hotkey bar. In other words, it include skills that will benefit your gameplay at any given point. This build requires the Dunmer race to have a high resistance to fire because fire is the most common damage type in both PvE and PvP settings. This race also boosts your fire damage and increases DPS on fire-based attacks. Examples of fire attacks include banner, flame whip, impulse, and searing strike. All of these moves are practical for PvP and reinforces the need for this damage buff. The general consensus is that a Dragonknight’s most effective move for dealing damage to other players is the fire ballistae.

Equipment
First, put 49 points into Health. You can regain stamina and health by using potions that increase spell crit, restore both stamina and health. You can use most enchants until you get one of the rarer VR enchants; enchants don’t matter too much. Equip two dominion rings in your jewelry slots. These rings along with the Destroy Staff give you an added 10 percent in spell crit bonus. Other passive abilities include a 70 point increase in health.

Cost Reduction vs. Magicka Regeneration
Cost reduction is generally more useful than magicka regeneration. This is because you can regenerate magicka through eating food. Furthermore, most fights do not last long enough for you to benefit from regenerating magicka. That is, in most cases you will cast your spells and not have enough time to regenerate mana. Thus, it is better for you to have some extra casts through cost reduction instead of gaining more casts through regeneration.

Armor
The Dominion Heavy Armor gives you various bonuses depending on how many pieces you wear. This armor gives you 160 health at three pieces, 5 percent damage reduction from other players at four pieces, and a 20 percent reduction from siege and player AoE damage.

Skills
Shield Charge allows you to prevent others from damaging you and your group. It interrupts their positioning which indirectly leads to less damage on your group. Caltrops, despite having a big cost in stamina, coupled with Choking Talons make it easy to set up on choke points and allows any impulsers on your team to deal extra damage. Flame Whip works with the boost in fire damage discussed earlier. The Dragonknight’s Ultimate guide, Werewolf Transformation, is useful for its passive abilities and not its active.

dragonknight fiery reach

Elder Scrolls Online Dragonknight Class Guide in Group Gameplay

Posted on February 12, 2014 by D. Cobb

Dragonknights are well known to be one of the most powerful warriors here at Elder Scrolls Online. Although the solo gameplay of these warrior types can be fierce, Dragonknights can also be played well in a group. The Dragonknight class can be specially trained for a group or solo gameplay. To build your character to be fit for group gameplay, however, you must consider the race, the skill tree, and some gameplay strategies.

eso group artwork

Health restoration and regeneration are important for your character when playing for group mode; you would be needed to increase your teammates’ strength and defenses without worrying too much on health. The suggested races for tanking build would be Nord, Khajiit, and Orc. They all have Robust for one of their natural race abilities. This specific ability allows them to regenerate their health by 5% while in combat.

The recommended eso dragonknight skill tree to follow would be the Earthen Heart. Many of the attacks may be long range, but you are also allowed to somehow disable and slow down your enemies. That way, you and your allies, especially the elder scrolls nightblade, would be able to work together as a team and take every single one of the enemies down.

The Stonefist and Molten Weapons skills under the Earthen Heart skill tree will both play important roles in gameplay strategy. Since Stonefist not only damages but also knocks out an enemy for a couple of seconds, you can use this attack on multiple enemies and give your teammates a chance to finish these enemies off. The Molten Weapons skill would be best used right before and throughout the entire battle. Using this and Stonefist in a group in this special manner is sure to help you and your team grow.

Another skill to unlock after Molten Weapon is Obsidian Shield. This skill should be used in the same way as the Molten Weapon skill. The final two attacks you can unlock are the Petrify and Ash Cloud skills. These are the two skills will that disable your enemies. It could probably depend on your enemy, but using these two skills interchangeably in some sort of pattern can also count for a good eso dragonknight guide. For example, you could use the Petrify skill first and use Stonefist on most if not all of the enemies. The enemies your teammates have not finished off that are fit to attack again can get hit by your Ash Cloud attack.

Guide to Play ESO Dragonknight Solo

Posted on February 7, 2014 by D. Cobb

The Dragonknight class in The Elder Scrolls Online will be one of the strongest solo classes in the game. It might even be the strongest solo class in the game. This is due to the combined killing power, AoE potential and survivability powers of the class. Dragonknights will be able to swap between two weapons during combat which will help them when it comes to choosing how to initiate combat and how to survive when under pressure. gameplay eso

To play the Dragonknight solo, you will want to choose a build that provides plenty of killing power but also a strong dose of survivability, crowd control and/or self-heals. This class has a particularly easy time with choosing a build that suits this combination since each skill line focuses on one of those elements. The Ardent Flame skill line is suited for straight DPS but also does a large amount of AoE DPS. This makes it extremely useful for soloing. There will be many situations where you’ll want to kill more than one enemy at a time.

The Draconic Power skill line is the tanking skill line, but for Dragonknights who are pure soloers, you may wish to take advantage of some of the tanking active abilities and passive abilities while solo. Many do not require the use of a shield. There are even a few self-heals in this tree. The final tree, the Earthen Heart skill tree, gives Dragonknights some interesting options for crowd control, survivability and group buffs that might be useful.

As far as choosing which abilities to use while solo, you will want to focus largely on DPS abilities from Ardent Flame and mix in a few others that compliment those well. You may wish to use a sword/shield for your secondary weapon set in order to have a setup that can survive well under pressure or you may wish to equip a secondary DPS weapon along with some crowd control abilities for when the going gets tough for your better eso leveling experience. Either way, you will want to focus on DPS but also have ways in which to avoid combat or survive a beating from multiple groups of mobs.

It may also be a good idea to equip a bow or staff to utilize some ranged abilities. Ranged abilities often help speed up combat while solo due to the fact that many mobs do harmful AoE abilities that can be difficult to soak while in melee range. It’s also easier to tag mobs as ranged.

The Tanking Dragonknight Build

Posted on February 3, 2014 by D. Cobb

Tanking Dragonknights will want to focus on holding the attention of enemies faced in The Elder Scrolls Online as well as reduce the amount of damage they take through mitigation and avoidance. The Dragonknight skill line most suited for tanking is the Draconic Power skill line. This is where the majority of your skill points should be located.

elder-scrolls-dragonknight-tanking

Draconic Power Skill Line:

For active skills, you will most likely want to slot Spike Armor, Inhale and Dragon Blood. These provide you with mitigation tools as well as self-heals and ways to deal reflective damage. Dark Talons and Reflective Scales are more optional, but still viable.

For passives you will want Iron Skin, Burning Heart, Elder Dragon and Scaled Armor. All of these are extremely valuable for tanking. The Draconic Power Ultimate is an AoE leap ability that is worth taking.

Ardent Flame Skill Line:

While the Ardent Flame skill line is primarily focused on DPS, there are some nice active options here for tanks. Fiery Reach is useful for pulling casters to you. Fiery Breath and Searing Strike are solid DPS options if you’re looking to provide more damage. The passives in this skill line are entirely optional.

Earthen Heart Skill Line:

The Earthen Heart skill line is more focused on support abilities which makes the majority of them optional, but there are a few worth making note of. Obsidian Shield is a powerful active ability that works as an absorption shield for yourself and your group which is a perfect skill when you match up with the powerful cc class eso sorcerer. Ash Cloud is also useful as it will lessen the amount of damage you take.

The Earthen Heart Ultimate is very good for tanks as it limits the amount of incoming damage and deals a fire-based DoT to enemies around you. It may be worth using instead of the Draconic Power Ultimate.

Weapon Skill Lines:

The one-handed weapon and shield skill line will have the majority of skills you want as a tank. Puncture is your taunt ability. Low Slash helps mitigate damage. Defense Posture will come in very handy. Shield Charge is a charge ability that may be useful.

For passives, Fortress, Sword and Board, Deflect Bolts and Battlefield Mobility are all extremely useful.

Other weapon skill line combinations may include the two-handed line or the dual wield line. You can swap to these weapons during moments of low damage or when first starting a fight to quickly build threat.

Recommended Skill Build for DPS Elder Scrolls Online Dragonknight

Posted on January 20, 2014 by D. Cobb

The info below is a bit out of date as it refers to the beta. If you happen to be looking for an up-to-date reference for your Dragonknight, I suggest this eso guide . It includes some killer advice on leveling up, builds, skill rotation, and gold farming.

All classes will have an immense amount of freedom in The Elder Scrolls Online. The Dragonknight is no exception(Look at how class system work in the ESO here). There are a few standout skills that DPS Dragonknights should consider taking. With these skills, you will be able to maximize your damage.

The first set of recommended skills will be separated into the three Dragonknight skill lines: Earthen Heart, Draconic Power and Ardent Flame.

lava whip dk skill

Ardent Flame Skill Line:

As the DPS skill line, most of your points will be from this tree. The tree provides a great deal of fire damage-over-time abilities and area-of-effect abilities.

Searing Strike and Inferno are key active abilities for the build. Lava Whip, Fiery Breath and Fiery Reach are more optional, but solid for soloing or AoEing. Kindling and Searing Heat are two passives skills you should have. Warmth is optional. World in Flames is limited to AoE damage. This skill line’s Ultimate– Dragonknight Standard– is the Ultimate you want to use.

Draconic Power Skill Line:

If you don’t plan to tank at all, you will find that most of this tree is completely optional. Dark Talons provides a nice CC while Dragon Blood is an excellent self-heal. If you don’t need either ability or already has the eso templar to heal you, you can skip them. The passives in this tree are not important for DPSers.

Earthen Heart Skill Line:

This skill line is for support, and as such, there are a few optional skills to consider. None of these are necessary for dealing more damage. Stonefist is decent if you feel the need for a knockback effect. Obsidian Shield and Ash Cloud are decent for helping supporting your group and yourself. Petrify is a very good CC. Out of the passive abilities for this tree, Deep Breaths has a decent use since it provides additional power for your Ultimate ability.

Weapon Skill Lines:

The rest of your DPS abilities and passives will be found within the weapon skill lines. Both the two-handed weapon line and the dual wielding line provide nice bonuses for the Dragonknight guide. The active skills you should take from two-handed weapons include Critical Charge, Reverse Slash and Momentum. For passives, Forceful, Heavy Weapons, Balance and Rattle Rush are all excellent.

When duel wielding, you want to use Twin Slashes and Flurry. Whirlwind is good if there is a lot of AoE. Slaughter, Duel Wield Expert, Controlled Fury and Twin Blade and Blunt are all excellent passives abilities.

Race for the ESO DragonKnight Tanking/DPS

Posted on January 9, 2014 by D. Cobb

Each race in The Elder Scrolls Online will have racial passive bonuses, Ultimate abilities and EXP bonuses that may be important when creating your character. While we don’t know every bonus of each of the races yet, we do know the bonuses for four of the races. The bonuses themselves are quite varied and not necessarily groundbreaking, but when maximizing your dragonknight abilities, any bit often helps.

Note: The Elder Scrolls Online is still in beta, the below racial bonus information is subject to change.

If you are planning to create a Dragonknight, the following races have these bonuses that will help out a Dragonknight the most:

Khajiit

Khajiit

Robust (Passive): Increased health regeneration during battle.
Carnage (Passive): Increased critical rating for melee attacks by 10 and damage done by successful critical hits by 5%.

Argonian

Argonian

Argonian Resistance (Passive): +26 to poison and disease resist.
Quick to Mend (Passive): Increased incoming heals from all sources.
Histskin (Ultimate): Increased Health regeneration for a short period.

Nord

Nord

Battle Cry (Ultimate): Battle shout that inspires you and your allies, increasing damage dealt.
Two-Handed Weapon Expertise (Passive): Increases skill EXP for this skill line.
Robust (Passive): Increased health regeneration during battle.
Resist Frost (Passive): Increased resistance to cold damage.
Rugged (Passive): Increased natural Armor rating.

Dark Elf

dark elf

Ancestral Guardian (Ultimate): Allows the Dark Elf to summon a guardian shade that will protect him/her for a limited time.
Ambidexterity (Passive): Increased skill EXP for the dual wield skill line.
Dynamic (Passive): Increased maximum Magicka and Stamina.
Resist Flame: Increased resistance to Fire damage.

As you can see, the Khajiit and Dark Elf bonuses apply more toward DPS Dragonknights. The Dark Elf bonuses, especially, are geared toward dual wielding. The Nord and Argonian bonuses are geared more toward tanking Dragonknights. The Nord bonuses are especially solid for Dragonknights who choose to use a two-handed sword.

As recommended in elderscrollslevelingguide.com, when it comes to choosing the best race for a Dragonknight who wishes to pursue tanking for their leveling in teso, based on this information alone, it looks like the Argonian bonuses or Nord bonuses may come out on top. The extra bonus to healing received as an Argonian may be extremely important when it comes to endgame, but the increased armor rating of a Nord may easily make up for it.

For DPS Dragoknights, it will depend on the type of weapon you want to specialize in. For two-handed DK, Nord is still extremely strong. For dual-wielders, both Khajiit and Dark Elf have some nice bonuses. The Carnage bonus for Khajiit may be extremely powerful.

Guide and Recommended Skills for the Dragon Knight Tanking Build

Posted on December 23, 2013 by D. Cobb

The Dragonknight class in The Elder Scrolls Online will be one that mainly concentrates on melee DPS as well as tanking. They will most likely be the main tanking elder scrolls online class of the game due to the skills they have available. They also utilize a solid number of abilities that have magical effects.

heavy armor in eso

Dragonknight tanks will want to focus primarily on the Draconic Power skill line, which where is where the majority of their tanking abilities and passives will be. Active abilities such as Spike Armor, Inhale and Reflective Scales will be vital for reflecting damage and preventing damage. Dragon Blood is the Dragonknight’s self-heal and heal-over-time ability that will also be vital.

The Dragonknight gains access to some extremely important tanking passives in the same skill line. Iron Skin increases block while Burning Heart boosts the amount of healing you receive. Elder Dragon increases health regeneration and Scaled Armor increases spell resistance. All of this will most likely be mandatory for endgame tanking. The Draconic Power ultimate ability is called Dragon Leap and is a leap attack that deals massive area-of-effect damage as well as performs a knockback. This will be a great way to open combat.

As far as other Dragonknight abilities go, the Ardent Flame skill line as well as the Earthen Heart skill line both have some interesting options. Fiery Reach, which is in the Ardent Flame tree, will most likely be vital for tanks as it can be used to pull an enemy directly toward you. Other Ardent Flame abilities include damage-over-time effects and area-of-effect attacks. These may be useful if you’re looking to go the route of a tank that can also deal serious damage.

In the Earthen Heart skill line, Dragonknights can choose earth-based attacks and buffs that serve a more supportive nature. Obsidian Shield is a damage absorption shield that looks like it may be particularly useful for tanks. Ash Cloud can also be used to cause enemies to miss more frequently, which will be useful. The Earthen Heart ultimate, which is called Magma Armor, will also be useful as it will lower the amount of incoming damage significantly.

Since the Dragonknight can be built offensive or defensive, tanks will be able to choose which direction to go in based on their favored playstyle. Once we know how difficult endgame encounters will be in TESO we can begin to speculate as to which builds will be the most prominent.

Dragonknight – the Tanking Class in the Elder Scrolls Online

Posted on July 23, 2013 by D. Cobb

You’ve tried the casters. You’ve tried the dedicated rangers. They were fun, but neither of them really clicked in that certain special way. You like the action. You’re a melee man. Not only are you not afraid to take the hits for your team, instead you thrive on it. Surrounded on all sides by all manner of fiendish creatures or staring down a nigh undefeatable monster of legend and smiling in anticipation all the while, you are the Dragonknight. The Dragonknight possesses three lines of magic he can choose to master: Ardent Flame, Draconic Power and Earthen Heart.

Consisting entirely of fire-based damage and single-target control abilities, the Ardent Flame line turns the Dragonknight into a walking firestorm. Skills like Inferno, Fiery Breath and Dragonknight Standard allow the Dragonknight to apply burning damage over time to large groups of foes at once, while Fiery Reach, Lava Whip and the Warmth passive make it extremely difficult for his foes to escape the kitchen when they can’t handle the heat. However the drawbacks in the Ardent Flame line are twofold: a marked lack of defensive bonuses present in both Draconic Power and Earthen Heart, and zero healing abilities. For an Ardent Flame Dragonknight, the name of the game is Kill or Be Killed.

Rather than damage, Draconic Power focuses on healing and personal defense which is good for PvE rather than PvP. Dark Talons and Dragon Leap offer opportunities to get in close and hold enemies. Spike Armor, Reflective Scales and Inhale deal some extra damage but only as a secondary effect to buffing up defense or topping off some health. For those interested in a Draconic Power Dragonknight, the Argonian would seem to be the logical choice, given the synergies between its natural healing and the focus on health and defense in the Draconic Power line.

Ardent Flame has damage. Draconic Power has self-support. But if group support is more your focus, then look no further than the Earthen Heart line. With two party buffs in Molten Weapons and Obsidian Shield and a plethora of crowd-control abilities like Magma Armor, Stonefist, Petrify and Ash Cloud, the Earthen Heart line specializes in raising up the Dragonknight’s party and locking down his enemies.

For anyone considering a career in stomping faces or shirking off blows, the Dragonknight presents singularly unique utility in the number of roles he is able to effectively fulfill. I personally believe that this should be the most powerful class in the Elder Scrolls Online.

dragonknight skills

How Does Class System Work in the Elder Scrolls Online?

Posted on February 14, 2013 by D. Cobb

The Elder Scrolls Online, the latest addition of the Elder Scrolls series, is trying to innovate a new class system that may change the MMO world ever. Refer to the game director, Matt Firor, weapons, gears, armors, and so on will not limit to a specific class anymore. It means that both Dragonknight and Sorcerer can suit up a heavy armor and shield alike.

Player could be able to dress up their beloved characters to whatever they want. This method of thinking tears apart the idea of traditional MMO severely. Moreover, ESO allows player to level up any kinds of weapons to gain both new skills and efficiency. Of cause, weapon skills will be changed based on a weapon holding in player hands.

With this new class system, there is no specific role for each class like previous MMORPGs. TESO offers players with a freedom of their choices to create a character of their owns. Spending a lot of points in increasing health bar will turn a character into a tanker even it is a sorcerer. In summary, gameplay in the Elder Scrolls Online is in accordance with player decision in adding skill points.

The Elder Scrolls Online Dragonknight Guide

Your One and Only Source for the ESO DK

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