Category: Best ESO Builds, Best Dragonknight Builds, DPS Builds
The Dragonknight is one of the most useful classes that you can play for your group in the Elder Scrolls Online. Especially in real raid situations, the DKs incredibly strong Single Target damage combined with its unique AOE toolkit makes it remarkably competitive with current meta classes, despite the slightly weaker numbers it seems to pull on the dummy. There are a ton of nuisances to be aware of regarding this class that separate it from any other, and here, you’ll learn all of the tools that you need to know in order to maximize your damage with the Dragonknight on the dummy and in content!
Dragonknight Class Overview
The Dragonknight Class is an extremely powerful way to play in The Elder Scrolls Online. Dragonknights have many similarities with other classes in ESO such as dedicated Class Skill lines for DPS, for Healing, and for Tanking. Dragonknights are known for their sturdy nature as melee combat specialists but also have many powerful magic abilities. For a more detailed guide be sure to review our ESO Dragonknight Class Guide.
Primary Sets
Our primary setup involves running just one 5 piece set, that being Perfected Arms of Relequen, a Medium Armor set from the Trial Cloudrest! Relequen is the strongest pure Single Target set in the game, and any class that has the ability to maintain it effectively, with few exceptions, will see the highest overall DPS by running it.
The next most important set in this build is the Harpooner’s Wading Kilt. The DK is a class that does not get Crit Damage passively, so rather than attempting to get to the 125% Crit Cap with Champion Points, we’ll be able to do it with this mythic AND get the bonus from the massive amount of Crit Chance the set provides as well!
We will pair this with the Zaan Monster Setup, the strongest monster for damage dealing, as well as two arena weapons.
On the Front Bar, we’ll take the Perfected Master’s Bow, which increases our Weapon and Spell Damage by 300 when we have Poison Arrow Active, as well as gives an additional 100 Weapon and Spell Damage as its Perfected Bonus! On the Backbar, we’ll opt to run the Perfected Maelstrom Bow, which dramatically increases the damage of Endless Hail, adding about 5-6K DPS to this ability! This not only provides a huge chunk of damage, but also increases the AOE utility of this build tremendously, since Endless Hail will now do 10-11K DPS in an AOE radius.
Finally, we have room for a 2 piece bonus, and we will always choose Crit Chance for this. Advancing Yokeda is listed in this build but any sets that offer 2 piece Crit Chance will work here! This setup is a bit niche though, so if you want to stick with a more traditional Dagger/Bow setup that involves running two trial sets, we’ll run the Master’s Bow backbar, and Drop the Maelstrom Bow and Zaan Monster Sets, opting to run the set Pillar of Nirn or Aegis Caller on the Front Bar. These are the next best sets that you can run on the Stam DK.
Perfected Arms Of Relequen
LVL 50 – CP 160
SET BONUS
(2 items) Adds 657 Critical Chance
(3 items) Gain Minor Slayer at all times, increasing your damage done to Dungeon, Trial, and Arena Monsters by 5%.
(4 items) Adds 657 Critical Chance
(5 items) Adds 1096 Maximum Stamina, Your Light and Heavy attacks apply a stack of harmful winds to your target for 5 seconds. Harmful winds deal 52 Physical Damage per stack every 1 second. This effect can stack once every half second, up to 10 times and scales off the higher of your Weapon or Spell Damage.
Harpooner’s Wading Kilt
LVL 50 – CP 160
SET BONUS
(1 item) Dealing direct damage grants you a stack of Hunter’s Focus for 20 seconds, up to 10 stacks max. You can only gain 1 stack of Hunter’s Focus per second. Each stack of Hunter’s Focus increases your Critical Chance by 110 and your Critical Damage by 1%. Taking direct damage removes 5 stacks of Hunter’s Focus, up to once per second. Removing Harpooner’s Wading Kilt removes all stacks of Hunter’s Focus.
Zaan
LVL 50 – CP 160
SET BONUS
(1 item) Adds 657 Critical Chance
(2 items) When you damage a nearby enemy with a Light or Heavy Attack, you have a 33% chance to create a beam of fire that will connect you to your enemy. The beam deals 2010 Flame Damage every 1 second to your enemy for 6 seconds. Every second, this damage increases by 100%. The beam is broken if the enemy moves 8 meters away from you. This effect can occur every 18 seconds.
Alternate Sets
Some of the DKs Meta setups include Trial sets, which can be a little tough to get early on. Any of the set options can be run with 99% effectiveness even if the gear is not perfected, allowing you to farm the trial on normal. The DPS output between Perfected and Non Perfected is very small, so don’t stress too much about farming these out on vet! If you can’t get into trials just yet, you can run the set Order’s Wrath. This set is a Craftable in High Isle, and is easily the best bang for your buck in terms of Damage Output compared to Ease of Acquisition. The rest of these pieces should be relatively easy to get, requiring you to farm mostly solo or four man type content, on normal or vet!
Order’s Wrath
LVL 50 – CP 160
SET BONUS
(2 items) Adds 657 Critical Chance
(3 items) Adds 129 Weapon and Spell Damage
(4 items) Adds 657 Critical Chance
(5 items) Adds 943 Critical Chance, Increases your Critical Damage and Critical Healing by 8%.
Trash Setup
If you’re looking to get a little sweaty in 12 man content, you can change around this entire setup to use in Trash Pulls, to maximize your AOE burst damage in these short encounters! Time spent in Trash makes up the majority of any Trial, so optimizing for these if you have the ability to do so is a great idea! From the trial Rockgrove, Sul-Xan is the uncontested meta in trash situations. Crit is king in these types of pulls, and this set provides nearly 10% extra crit chance, and 12% extra Crit Damage. Since trash pulls are so short, the Crit Chance makes our damage a bit burstier, and allows us to still hit Crit Cap despite sources of Crit Damage not being able to all be consistently applied in that short window either.
In the past, we’ve opted to run Burning Spell Weave in Trash, as it offers the highest damage increase out of any other alternative in a much shorter window of time. However, for Stamina Specs, Briar Heart ends up being a slightly stronger option, offering a Line of Stam rather than mag, as well as a line of Crit Chance rather than weapon and spell damage. Both of these stat lines will be more preferable for a Stam spec for Trash than the lines that Burning Spell Weave offers, making this set slightly more preferable! Briar Heart can be found in the overlands of Wrothgar, requiring the Orsinium DLC. You’ll usually pair these sets with the Velothi Ur-Mage’s Amulet and the vMA Inferno/vMA Bow plus one piece Slimecraw.
Briarheart
LVL 50 – CP 160
SET BONUS
(2 items) Adds 657 Critical Chance
(3 items) Adds 1096 Maximum Stamina
(4 items) Adds 657 Critical Chance
(5 items) When you deal Critical Damage, you increase your Weapon and Spell Damage by 450 for 10 seconds. While this effect is active your Critical Strikes heal you for 100 Health. This effect can occur once every 15 seconds and the heal scales off the higher of your Maximum Magicka or Stamina.
Primary Set Load Out
| Weapon/Armor | Set | Trait | Weight | Glyph |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Main Hand | (Perfected) Caustic Arrow | Precise | Bow | Flame Damage |
| Backup | (Perfected) Thunderous Volley | Infused | Bow | Weapon Damage |
| Head | Zaan | Divines | Medium | Max Stamina |
| Shoulder | Zaan | Divines | Medium | Max Stamina |
| Chest | (Perfected) Arms of Relequen | Divines | Medium | Max Stamina |
| Waist | (Perfected) Arms of Relequen | Divines | Medium | Max Stamina |
| Gloves | (Perfected) Arms of Relequen | Divines | Medium | Max Stamina |
| Legs | (Perfected) Arms of Relequen | Divines | Medium | Max Stamina |
| Feet | (Perfected) Arms of Relequen | Divines | Medium | Max Stamina |
| Necklace | Velothi Ur-Mage’s Amulet | Bloodthirsty | NA | Weapon Damage |
| Ring 1 | Advancing Yokeda | Bloodthirsty | NA | Weapon Damage |
| Ring 2 | Advancing Yokeda | Bloodthirsty | NA | Weapon Damage |
Alternate Set Load Out
| Weapon/Armor | Set | Trait | Weight | Glyph |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Main Hand | (Perfected) Caustic Arrow | Precise | Bow | Flame Damage |
| Backup | (Perfected) Thunderous Volley | Infused | Bow | Weapon Damage |
| Head | Zaan | Divines | Medium | Max Stamina |
| Shoulder | Zaan | Divines | Medium | Max Stamina |
| Chest | Order’s Wrath | Divines | Medium | Max Stamina |
| Waist | Order’s Wrath | Divines | Medium | Max Stamina |
| Gloves | Order’s Wrath | Divines | Medium | Max Stamina |
| Legs | Order’s Wrath | Divines | Medium | Max Stamina |
| Feet | Order’s Wrath | Divines | Medium | Max Stamina |
| Necklace | Velothi Ur-Mage’s Amulet | Bloodthirsty | NA | Weapon Damage |
| Ring 1 | Advancing Yokeda | Bloodthirsty | NA | Weapon Damage |
| Ring 2 | Advancing Yokeda | Bloodthirsty | NA | Weapon Damage |
Trash Loadout
| Weapon/Armor | Set | Trait | Weight | Glyph |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Main Hand | Briarheart | Precise | Dagger | Flame Damage |
| Off Hand | Briarheart | Charged | Dagger | Absorb Stam |
| Backup | (Perfected) Thunderous Volley | Infused | Bow | Weapon Damage |
| Head | Slimecraw | Divines | Light | Max Stamina |
| Shoulder | Briarheart | Divines | Medium | Max Stamina |
| Chest | (Perfected) Sul-Xan’s Torment | Divines | Medium | Max Stamina |
| Waist | (Perfected) Sul-Xan’s Torment | Divines | Medium | Max Stamina |
| Gloves | (Perfected) Sul-Xan’s Torment | Divines | Medium | Max Stamina |
| Legs | (Perfected) Sul-Xan’s Torment | Divines | Medium | Max Stamina |
| Feet | (Perfected) Sul-Xan’s Torment | Divines | Medium | Max Stamina |
| Necklace | Velothi Ur-Mage’s Amulet | Bloodthirsty | NA | Weapon Damage |
| Ring 1 | Briarheart | Bloodthirsty | NA | Weapon Damage |
| Ring 2 | Briarheart | Bloodthirsty | NA | Weapon Damage |
Consumables, Race, Mundus
Race
Dark Elf gives us the strongest stat bonuses of any race, offering nearly 2K Max Stam and 258 Weapon and Spell Damage. For any Stam Spec, this is the race option will give you the best results for damage dealing. One niche benefit to this race is that Dark Elf is also Meta for Mag Specs as well, as it is tied in Max Spell and Weapon Damage compared to other races, while offering only 1K less Max Mag compared to a Race like High Elf. If you want to have the flexibility to switch between Mag and Stam Specs, this is your go to!
Orc is a pretty close second, offering the same amount of weapon and spell damage, but giving 1,000 less Max Stamina, resulting in a 1-2k DPS loss. Orc does have the benefit though of reduced sprint cost, increased movement speed, and being a bit beefier in content, adding 1,000 Max Health, and healing for 2K health whenever you do damage, occurring once every 12 seconds. Despite being slightly lower in overall DPS output, the perks of being an Orc are a bit more enjoyable than Dark Elf if you’re not concerned with pumping out as much damage as possible.
In solo, four man, or even unorganized 12 man content, Khajiit performs well in situations that leave you below the Crit Damage Cap, offering 12% increased Critical damage and 1,000 Max Stam. Crit Damage is a stat far more important than Weapon and Spell Damage, but only to a certain point. You can’t benefit from having any more than 125% Crit Damage, and this is a value that tanks and healers in 12 man content can get you to pretty easily, but this is a really strong race to choose for the sake of solo, duo, or 4 man content.
For more details on all ESO Races and passive bonuses be sure to check out our Full ESO Race Guide.
Mundus
The Thief
Increases the Critical Strike rating by 1333
With 7 Divines armor pieces
Increases the Critical Strike rating by 2167
Food/Drink Buff
Candied Jester’s Coins: On the DK, since we are using the high costing Mag Ability Burning Talons, you will likely find that you’re only able to sustain you Magicka Pool by running Candied Jester’s Coins, a food option that increases our Max Stamina and offers some Magicka Recovery. Though this won’t be the strongest overall Food Option, it will be necessary on the dummy!
Bravil’s Best Beet Risotto/Hearty Garlic Corn Chowder/Tenmar Millet-Carrot Couscous: These food options provide the highest increase that we can have to our Stam pool, giving us the most potential Damage.
Braised Rabbit With Spring Vegetables/Garlic COD With Potato Crust/Sticky Pork and Ravish Noodles: Bi Stat Food that offer Max Health and Stam. This is less Damage than Max Stam foods BUT they offer a TON of survivability at a very small damage loss. This food is most often used in content.
Lava Foot Soup and Saltrice: When you’re having sustain issues in content, this should be your first go to, as it provides the most Stam (and therefore damage) and the most recovery out of any alternative food option after the ones already mentioned. It does sacrifice health, and therefore, a considerable amount of survivability however.
Artaeum Takeaway Broth: If you can’t survive with Lava Foot, but have to solve a sustain problem, this will be the next best option giving less Stam than any of the previous options, but offering some health and Stam Recovery in addition to slightly less Stam than the other options, creating a happy medium.
Potions
Heorism Pots: This is typically the go to option on the DK. It’s important to know however, that these will only be the strongest option as long as you know that running heroism pots in a fight will give you a full extra ultimate that you wouldn’t be able to have otherwise. A few major drawbacks however, these potions don’t give any weapon/spell damage or crit buffs, so you have to source Prophecy/Savagery by running Flames of Oblivion, as well as source your Sorcery/Brutality buffs by having a DK support run Igneous Weapons, or by running Degeneration. These potions are also very expensive as they require Dragon Rheum, Dragon’s Blood, and Columbine to make.
Tri Sta Potions: If Heroism Potions are too expensive, you may find that Tri Pots will be the next best option for you. The DK uses a fair amount of Mag and Stam skills, so it’s helpful to have a way to restore Magicka . Much like the Heroism Potions, you would be missing your Major Weapon and Crit Chance Buffs, so you would have to source those via Flames of Oblivion on your bar and Igneous Weapons on the tank. You can craft these by combining Columbine, Bugloss, and Mountain Flower.
Weapon Damage Potions: If you can’t source the Weapon/Spell Damage or Weapon/Spell Crit buffs for whatever reason, you have to run the Alliance Battle/Essence of Weapon Power potions to ensure that you have these buffs active. It is more important to have these buffs sourced somewhere than to not have them at all for the sake of your overall damage. You can craft these by combining Blessed Thistle, Dragonthorn, and Wormwood, or by purchasing the Alliance Battle Draught in Cyrodiil.
Skills
Main Weapon: BOW – Click on a Skill Name to learn more
Backup Weapon: BOW – Click on a Skill Name to learn more
Flex Skills
Listed here are the most common Flex Skill Alternatives that you’ll likely use on this class. I’d suggest replacing Claw for AOE situations and Molten Whip for more Single Target Situations, for all the Non Spammable type Flex Skills!
- Skills for Healing: Dragon’s Blood, Resolving/Echoing Vigor
- AOE Skills: Whirling Blades, Anti Cavalry Caltrops
- Trash Skills: Deep Breath, Proxy Det
Skills Discussion & Rotation
Rotation
Static Rotation
- Pre Prebuff (Optional): Walk up to a separate dummy, build kilt and seething fury stacks, then throw degen/FOO and reset dummies. Go to your well, use Dawnbreaker, hit the well again.
- Prebuff: Flames of Oblivion (FOO) – Endless Hail – Trap
- Opening: Eruption – Claw – Venom Arrow – Talons – Acid Spray – Ult – Spam x2 – Talons – Acid Spray – FOO – Endless Hail – Spam x1 – Talons – Acid Spray – Spam x3
- Rotation: Talons – Acid Trap – FOO – Endless Hail – Eruption – Claw – Venom Arrow – Trap – Talons – Acid Spray – Spam x3 – Talons – Acid Spray – Spam x3 – REPEAT
- Cast your ult in place of a spammable whenever it’s ready to be cast
- Note that, the Stam DKs timers make developing a truly static rotation that competes with the damage potential of the Dynamic Rotation nearly impossible. To close the gap in damage a little further, you can maintain the suggested rotation, but cast Endless Hail and FOO dynamically, reapplying those abilities when their timers expire.
Dynamic Rotation
- Prebuff: Flames of Oblivion – Endless Hail – Trap
- Opening: Eruption – Claw – Venom Arrow – Talons – Acid Spray
- Priority: Trap – Venom Arrow – Talons – Acid Spray – Endless Hail – Flames of Oblivion – Eruption – Claw
- At 500K and below, spam only
Notes
- Talons/Acid Spray: These rotations are built around our Talons and Acid Spray Casts. Every Class in the game has one extremely important skill with a very short timer. The Stam DK however, is the only class in the game currently with two of them! Ensuring that we are casting these one in every 5 skills is essential to maximizing our DPS output on the DK. Casting these skills too early don’t have a huge damage penalty, as the Burst damage ends up doing about just as much damage as the DOT, and only slightly less damage than our spammable, but does severely penalize our sustain.
- Seething Fury: One of the only unique elements to doing damage on a DK outside of simple timer management is seething fury. This is a HUGE damage bonus, giving us a ton of Weapon and Spell Damage. Ensuring that you are casting a seething Fury ability once every 15 seconds is essential to maximizing damage on this class. The only skills that we can maintain this buff with are Claw and Flames of Oblivion. Try to stagger these timers at the start of your rotation so that they never need to be activated at the same time, and if they get to the point where they line up in your rotation, make sure you reapply FOO a little early.
- Flames of Oblivion: Flames of Oblivion is a bit of a unique skill on the DK. FOO presents itself as a spammable, that does its damage without you having to cast it. If you spam Flames of Oblivion, it will react like any other spammables, shooting out Fireballs every time you click the button. If you let the skill act as a DOT however, it will proc its damage once every three seconds, including a final tick on its expiration. Reapplying this skill early, means that you cancel that final tick of damage, and proc one immediately on expiration instead. This ends up being a decent damage loss if done too many times.
Passive Skills
Class Passives
- Combustion
- Warmth
- Searing Heat
- World In Ruin
- Iron Skin
- Burning Heart
- Elder Dragon
- Scaled Armor
- Eternal Mountain
- Battle Roar
- Mountain’s Blessing
- Helping Hands
Weapon Passives
- Slaughter
- Dual Wield Expert
- Controlled Fury
- Ruffian
- Twin Blade And Blunt
- Forceful
- Heavy Weapons
- Balanced Blade
- Follow Up
- Battle Rush
Armor Passives
Guild Passives
Racial
Other
Champion Points
Below you will find the recommended Active and Passive Champion Point Stars for this build, broken down into 300, 600, 900, and 1200 CP ranges.
For more information on Champion Points click on a Star name below or browse our detailed Champion Points Guides.
Constellation Descriptions:
Craft TREE
The Green Craft Constellation is focused on crafting and utility-centered upgrades.
Warfare TREE
The Blue Warfare Constellation focuses primarily on increasing player damage, healing and defenses
Fitness TREE
The Red Fitness Constellation is focused on character survival and sustain.
– 300 Champion Points –
GREEN
BLUE
RED
– 600 Champion Points –
GREEN
- 50 Steed’s Blessing (Slot)
- 50 Gilded Fingers
- 10 Fortune’s Favor
- 15 Wanderer
- 40 Steadfast Enchantment
- 30 Rationer (Slot)
BLUE
- 50 Deadly Aim (Slot)
- 50 Thaumaturge (Slot)
- 50 Wrathful Strikes (Slot)
- 25 Master at Arms (Slot) *Note that Exploiter will be better in organized groups
- 10 Precision
- 10 War Mage
RED
- 50 Boundless Vitality (Slot)
- 50 Rejuvenation (Slot)
- 50 Fortified (Slot)
- 20 Sprinter
- 16 Hasty
- 20 Hero’s Vigor
– 900 Champion Points –
GREEN
- 50 Steed’s Blessing (Slot)
- 50 Gilded Fingers
- 10 Fortune’s Favor
- 15 Wanderer
- 40 Steadfast Enchantment
- 30 Rationer (Slot)
- 50 Breakfall
- 50 Treasure Hunter (Slot)
BLUE
- 50 Deadly Aim (Slot)
- 50 Thaumaturge (Slot)
- 50 Wrathful Strikes (Slot)
- 25 Master at Arms (Slot) *Note that Exploiter will be better in organized groups
- 20 Precision
- 20 War Mage
- 20 Flawless Ritual
- 10 Quick Recovery
- 10 Elemental Aegis
- 10 Preparation
- 10 Hardy
RED
- 50 Boundless Vitality (Slot)
- 50 Rejuvenation (Slot)
- 50 Fortified (Slot)
- 20 Sprinter
- 16 Hasty
- 20 Hero’s Vigor
- 50 Celerity (Slot)
- 30 Tumbling
- 20 Defiance
– 1200 Champion Points –
GREEN
- 50 Steed’s Blessing (Slot)
- 50 Gilded Fingers
- 30 Fortune’s Favor
- 15 Wanderer
- 50 Steadfast Enchantment
- 30 Rationer (Slot)
- 50 Breakfall
- 50 Treasure Hunter (Slot)
- 75 Liquid Efficiency (Slot)
BLUE
- 50 Deadly Aim (Slot)
- 50 Thaumaturge (Slot)
- 50 Wrathful Strikes (Slot)
- 50 Master at Arms (Slot) *Note that Exploiter will be better in organized groups
- 40 Precision
- 30 War Mage
- 20 Flawless Ritual
- 20 Quick Recovery
- 20 Elemental Aegis
- 20 Preparation
- 20 Hardy
RED
- 50 Boundless Vitality (Slot)
- 50 Rejuvenation (Slot)
- 50 Fortified (Slot)
- 20 Sprinter
- 16 Hasty
- 20 Hero’s Vigor
- 50 Celerity (Slot)
- 30 Tumbling
- 20 Defiance
- 20 Tireless Guardian
- 30 Fortification
How To Create Powerful ESO Builds
Crafting the Perfect Build for you in The Elder Scrolls Online can be frustrating. Which skills are best for each class? What about passives? The best race? The best armor type and weapons? The best trait and glyphs? There are literally THOUSANDS of different options!
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More Dragonknight Builds For ESO
Want more Dragonknight Builds? Check out our dedicated Dragonknight Builds overview page for even more great options!
About Eigh1 Puppies
Eigh1 Puppies is an ESO Stream Team Member, Twitch Partner, and ESO YouTuber. Eight Puppies has ample experience as an end-game raider in ESO, accomplishing every Trial Trifecta on Tank, Healer, and Damage Dealer and holding current Records in Trials on Console from the Damage Dealing role.
For in-depth build guides, trial guides, and Trifecta POVs for every role, visit Eight Puppies on YouTube. To see trial progression content live, check out Eight Puppies on Twitch. For any questions that you might have about any area of ESO endgame, join Eight Puppies Discord, to get in contact with him directly!
