Category: Best ESO Builds, Best Dragonknight Builds, Solo Builds, One Bar Build, Heavy Attack Builds, Best Subclassing Builds
The MAULER Build is an absolute BEAST! As a Stamina Dragonknight (DK), we have many hard-hitting abilities, as well as natural buffs to our HEAVY ATTACK damage. So if you want a heavy-hitting, tough-as-nails warrior-type character, look no further! This build is now updated for subclassing!
What you will learn in this One Bar Heavy Attack build guide:
- The best item sets to use with the Dragonknight One Bar Build, and why they are important.
- How the skills work, synergies with the gear, and your rotation.
- The best consumables, race, and mundus, and most importantly, why you should select them.
This guide has been updated for The Elder Scrolls Online Update 50.
- Dragonknight Class Overview
- Heavy Attack Build Sets
- Alternative Sets
- One Bar Build Gear Setup
- Attributes
- Race
- Mundus
- Food & Drink
- Potions
- Pure Class Skills
- Subclassing Skill Lines
- Subclassling Skills
- Skills Explanation
- Rotation
- Passive Skills
- Class Mastery
- Companions
- Champion Points
- Update Log
- How To Create Powerful ESO Builds
- More Dragonknight Builds For ESO
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.
Dragonknight Heavy Attack Build Sets
The main sets on the Mauler Build revolve around buffing your Heavy Attack damage as much as possible and increasing our DOT potential.
Our main Heavy Attack buff set for this build is Sergeant’s Mail. This gives you a stackable buff which increases you Heavy Attack damage up to 4 times, but it’s important to always be heavy attacking to proc this effect.
The second set, Order’s Wrath is an easily crafted option which buffs all of our outgoing damage with more Critical Chance and increased Crit Damage.
The Oakensoul Ring is the new go-to Mythic Item that packs a punch for one bar builds. delivering many powerful Major and Minor buffs.
Finally, a one-piece Monster Set is perfect for adding some extra stats to this build. My favorite option is Slimcraw for the additional Critical Chance
Sergeant’s Mail
LVL 50 – CP 160
SET BONUS
(2 items) Adds 1206 Maximum Health
(3 items) Adds 129 Health Recovery
(4 items) Adds 129 Weapon and Spell Damage
(5 items) When you deal damage with a Heavy Attack, you gain a stack of Sergeant’s Focus for 5 seconds, increasing the damage of your Heavy Attacks by 645 per stack. This effect can occur once every second and stacks up to 4 times.
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%.
The Oakensoul Ring
LVL 50 – CP 160
SET BONUS
(1 item) While equipped, you are unable to swap between your Primary and Backup Weapon Sets and gain Minor Berserk, Minor Courage, Major Brutality, Major Sorcery, Major Prophecy, Major Savagery, Minor Force, Minor Protection, Major Resolve, Minor Fortitude, Minor Intellect, Minor Endurance, Minor Heroism, Minor Aegis, Minor Slayer and Empower.
Volcanic stone for Firesong. Gems for Eldertide. With Stonelore craftsmanship to bind them together. This ring is the Draoife Incarnate. The might of the druids, in the palm of your hand.
Slimecraw
LVL 50 – CP 160
SET BONUS
(1 item) Adds 657 Critical Chance
(2 items) Adds 113 Critical Chance, Gain Minor Berserk at all times, increasing your damage done by 5%
Dragonknight Heavy Attack Build Alternative Sets
If you don’t have Segeant’s Mail, an alternative set for heavy attacks is Noble Duelist. This set is part of the base game and adds a powerful Heavy Attack buff that is easy to maintain. More options can be found in our Best Heavy Attack Sets guide. A more defensive option worth considering for solo content is the set Hexos Ward.
Noble Duelist
LVL 50 – CP 160
SET BONUS
(2 items) Adds 129 Stamina Recovery
(3 items) Adds 129 Weapon and Spell Damage
(4 items) Adds 129 Weapon and Spell Damage
(5 items) When you deal damage with a Light or Heavy Attack in melee range, you cause your Light and Heavy Attacks to deal an additional 2111 damage for 15 seconds. This effect can occur once every 12 seconds.
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) Dealing direct Critical Damage grants you a damage shield that absorbs up to 12305 damage for 6 seconds. This effect can occur once every 7 seconds.
Oakensoul Ring Lead Locations
Getting the Oakensoul Ring in ESO is easier than you might think! Check out our full Oakensoul Ring Guide.
Dragonknight Heavy Attack One Bar Build Gear Setup
| Weapon/Armor | Set | Trait | Weight | Glyph |
| Main Hand | Sergeant’s Mail Maul | Precise | NA | Flame Damage |
| Backup | None | NA | NA | NA |
| Head | Order’s Wrath | Divines | Medium | Stamina |
| Shoulder | Slimecraw | Divines | Medium | Stamina |
| Chest | Sergeant’s Mail | Divines | Heavy | Stamina |
| Waist | Order’s Wrath | Divines | Light | Stamina |
| Gloves | Order’s Wrath | Divines | Light | Stamina |
| Legs | Order’s Wrath | Divines | Heavy | Stamina |
| Feet | Order’s Wrath | Divines | Medium | Stamina |
| Necklace | Sergeant’s Mail | Bloodthirsty | NA | Weapon Damage |
| Ring 1 | Sergeant’s Mail | Bloodthirsty | NA | Weapon Damage |
| Ring 2 | Oakensoul Ring | Bloodthirsty | NA | Weapon Damage |
Dragonknight Heavy Attack Build Attributes
The best attribute for this One Bar Build is Stamina due to the majority of our skills costing Stamina to cast and our main weapon, the Two Hander, also restoring Stamina when dealing heavy attacks. Therefore, I recommend 64 Stamina, 0 Health, and 0 Magicka in terms of your final Attributes.
0 Magicka
0 Health
64 Stamina
Dragonknight Heavy Attack Build Race
The best choice for this Solo One Bar build race is Khajiit thanks to the extra Critical Damage, Max Stats, and recoveries. However, it’s not a commonly used race for end-game serious PvE DPS. If that’s your goal eventually, use the Dark Elf. If you want to have better defensive stats and survival then choose Nord.
For more details on all ESO Races and passive bonuses be sure to check out our Full ESO Race Guide.
Dragonknight Heavy Attack Build Mundus
The Thief is the best mundus stone for the One Bar Dragonknight build because you cannot reach a “cap.” Critical damage (Shadow mundus) and offensive penetration (Lover) both can reach a hardcap where you see no benefit. Most Veteran enemies have 18,200 armor, thus Shadow becomes ineffective if using light armor. Meanwhile, the hardcap for critical damage is 125% which can be reached in trials with medium armor equipped. This is why the Thief is superior as an all around mundus stone, giving you the best benefit regardless of the content.
Increases the Critical Strike rating by 1333
With 7 Divines armor pieces
Increases the Critical Strike rating by 2167
The Lover
Increases Physical and Spell Penetration by 2744
With 7 Divines armor pieces
Increases Physical and Spell Penetration by 4489
Dragonknight Heavy Attack Build Food & Drink
The best food for a One Bar Dragonknight is Bewitched Sugar Skulls because it increases all three stat pools. Using heavy attacks constantly will give you great resource sustain, therefore three stats is optimal. An alternative to Bewitched Sugar Skulls is Longfin Pasty with Melon Sauce. This is purple quality, cheaper, same buff to three stat pools just cheaper overall.
Below are the ingredients for the Food choices:
- Bewitched Sugar Skulls: Scrib Jelly, Flour, Columbine, Bervez Juice, and Honey.
- Longfin Pasty with Melon Sauce: fish fruit, melon vegetable, greens, and Frost Mirriam.
Bewitched Sugar Skulls
Increase Max Health by 4620, Max Stamina and Magicka by 4250, and Health Recovery by 462 for 2 hours.
These effects are scaled based on your level.
Dragonknight Heavy Attack Build Potions
The best armor potions for a Dragonknight One Bar build are Essence of Health armor potions using Bugloss, Mountain Flower, Mudcrab Chitin. This potion boost your spell and physical resistance lowering overall damage. Moreover it’s not a buff like Major Resolve, so it stacks and allows you to reach very high resistances. Alternatively, you can use Tri Potions and get an extra on-demand heal and better resource sustain.
Basic Increase Armor Potions
Bugloss, Mountain Flower, Mudcrab Chitin
Tri-Stat Potions
Stamina Dragonknight One Bar Pure Class Skills
With Update 49, the pure class Dragonknight is now likely the strongest version of this build for Solo Content, including Overland zones, and soloing World Bosses, Dungeons and Arenas.
Main Weapon: TWO HANDED – Click on a Skill Name to learn more
- Disintegrating Dragonfire
- Burning Embers
- Incinerate or Cauterize
- Carve or Brawler
- Hearth And Home
- ULT: Standard Of Might or Take Flight
One Bar Dragonknight Subclassing Skill Lines
This build can gain more offensive and defensive potential when incorporating ESO Subclassing. Below are the recommended Subclass Skill Lines:
- Dragonknight Ardent Flame – our main damage skill line which provides many helpful DOTs and also includes healing effects
- Dragonknight Draconic Power – this skill line provides an extremely powerful ultimate, strong damage over time and debuff in Disintegrating Dragonfire and useful utility.
- Templar Aedric Spear – use this optionally for a strong damage shield and some nice passives.
Stamina Dragonknight One Bar Subclassling Skills
Main Weapon: TWO HANDED – Click on a Skill Name to learn more
- Disintegrating Dragonfire
- Burning Embers
- Radiant Ward
- Carve or Brawler
- Hearth And Home
- ULT: Standard Of Might or Take Flight
Skills Explanation Dragonknight One Bar
Main Weapon: TWO HANDED – Click on a Skill Name to learn more
- Disintegrating Dragonfire: AOE cone DOT that also reduces the armor of targets hit, making you do more damage and should be your primary DOT.
- Burning Embers: high damage over time that also heals based off how much damage you do – can use on multiple targtets.
- Incinerate or Cauterize: use Incinerate for more damage or Cauterize for strong healing.
- Radiant Ward: this powerful damage shield skill can be used when subclassing the Templar Aedric Spear skill line. It increases in strength with the amount of enemies hit plus deals additional damage.
- Carve: Carve applies a bleed DOT to all enemies hit by your blade while also creating a damage shield useful for solo content.
- Brawler: Use as a defensive option for a large damage shield versus multiple targets when surrounded.
- Hearth And Home: This is an insanely powerful defensive skill, providing healing and Major Protection, reducing the damage you take.
- ULT: Standard Of Might: non-mobile high damage ultimate that while you stay inside, you do more damage and reduce incoming damage.
- ULT: Take Flight: cheap to cast Ultimate which is great for short bursts of damage.
Dragonknight Heavy Attack Build Rotation
Begin by casting Incinerate / Cauterize. Next, cast Carve and Disintegrating Dragonfire. Next, cast Burning Embers on any elite enemies for extra DOT damage and healing.
Then simply rinse and repeat. It’s important that you Heavy Attack between every skill to maintain the stacks of Sergeant’s Mail which increase your heavy attack damage. You can actually just hold down your heavy attack the entire time during combat while casting abilities and ESO will automatically cast them for you after the heavy attack completes. This is even easier if using a controller.
Cast your Ultimate on cool-down. Use Hearth and Home for more difficult fights.
Dragonknight Heavy Attack Build Passive Skills
Class Passives
- Combustion
- Traumatic Burns
- Fan the Flames
- A Soul Ablaze
- Burnished Scales
- World in Ruin
- Elder Dragon
- The Storm Voice
- Heart of Stone
- Landslide
- Blessing at the Peak
- Mountain Giant
Weapon Passives
Armor Passives
- Grace
- Evocation
- Spell Warding
- Prodigy
- Concentration
- Dexterity
- Wind Walker
- Agility
- Athletics
- Resolve
- Constitution
- Juggernaut
- Revitalize
- Rapid Mending
Guild Passives
Racial
Other
ESO Dragonknight Class Mastery
Players that reach level 50 in ESO while also fully reaching Rank 50 for their class skill lines and not subclassing can use 2 Class Mastery passives to improve their build. For the Dragonknight Heavy Attack build I recommend Inexorable Descent for the increased damage done, healing done and damage shield strength along with Wildfire Embers for the additional damage over time.
Inexorable Descent
Be as the landslide. Let nothing stop you.
Effect
Improves your Landslide passive to increase the potency of your damage done, healing done, and damage shield strength by 1% per stack.
Wildfire Embers
Fire forged within can never be extinguished. Fan the flames.
Effect
When your Dragonknight damage over time effects end, you apply Wildfire Embers to the target, dealing 1884 Flame Damage over 12 seconds. This effect stacks up to 12 times and increases in damage by 25% per stack.
Companions
If you like playing Solo, this build can benefit greatly from using Companions! This Solo build will benefit the most from the additional healing and buff options a healer focused Companion can offer, so if you are going to use a Companion I would suggest a full healer build for them. I recommend Mirri Elendis for Companion on this build with the set up below. More information on Companions Builds and Skills can be found in our detailed Companion Guides section.
Recommended Gear
- All Light Armor – Quickened Traits
- Restoration Staff
Recommended Skills
Additional Skills
The skills below may also be helpful in other situations such as trash pulls.
Full Companion Build
Featured: INFUSOR
The INFUSOR Build is an easy Healing Set Up for Mirri Elendis, one of the new Companions available to ESO players starting in the Blackwood Chapter. The theme of this build is focused around Blood Magic Healing, as Mirri’s own class skills are very similar to that of a Nightblade.
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
- 10 Wanderer
- 50 Steadfast Enchantment
- 30 Rationer
BLUE
RED
- 50 Boundless Vitality (Slot)
- 50 Rejuvenation (Slot)
- 10 Sprinter
- 8 Hasty
- 20 Hero’s Vigor
- 10 Shield Master
- 50 Bastion (Slot)
– 900 Champion Points –
GREEN
- 50 Steed’s Blessing (Slot)
- 50 Gilded Fingers
- 10 Fortune’s Favor
- 10 Wanderer
- 50 Steadfast Enchantment
- 30 Rationer
- 50 Treasure Hunter
- 30 Master Gatherer (Slot)
- 20 Gifted Rider (Slot)
BLUE
- 20 Precision
- 20 Piercing
- 50 Weapons Expert (Slot)
- 50 Master-At-Arms (Slot)
- 50 Deadly Aim (Slot)
- 50 Thaumaturge (Slot)
- 40 Battle Mastery
- 30 Mighty
RED
- 50 Boundless Vitality (Slot)
- 50 Rejuvenation (Slot)
- 20 Sprinter
- 16 Hasty
- 20 Hero’s Vigor
- 10 Shield Master
- 50 Bastion (Slot)
- 50 Fortified (Slot)
- 30 Tumbling
– 1200 Champion Points –
GREEN
- 50 Steed’s Blessing (Slot)
- 50 Gilded Fingers
- 10 Fortune’s Favor
- 10 Wanderer
- 50 Steadfast Enchantment
- 30 Rationer
- 50 Treasure Hunter
- 30 Master Gatherer (Slot)
- 50 Gifted Rider (Slot)
- 75 War Mount (Slot)
BLUE
- 20 Precision
- 20 Piercing
- 50 Weapons Expert (Slot)
- 50 Master-At-Arms (Slot)
- 50 Deadly Aim (Slot)
- 50 Thaumaturge (Slot)
- 20 Battle Mastery
- 30 Mighty
- 20 Tireless Discipline
- 20 Quick Recovery
- 20 Hardy
- 20 Elemental Aegis
- 20 Preparation
RED
- 50 Boundless Vitality (Slot)
- 50 Rejuvenation (Slot)
- 20 Sprinter
- 16 Hasty
- 20 Hero’s Vigor
- 10 Shield Master
- 50 Bastion (Slot)
- 50 Fortified (Slot)
- 30 Tumbling
- 20 Defiance
- 20 Tireless Guardian
- 30 Fortification
Update Log
- June 8, 2026 – created Class Mastery passives section
- May 6, 2026 – Updated Green Champion Points
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!
This is why we created the ESO Zero To Hero Build Academy – A Simple, yet Powerful build system that teaches the fundamentals of ESO Theorycrafting, step-by-step.
Build your character exactly how YOU want by following this simple process from start to finish and FINALLY start enjoying ESO the way you want to play it!
Our Guides are designed with New and Intermediate players in mind! Stop wasting hours searching the internet for the best ESO build information – get what you need NOW to succeed!
More Dragonknight Builds For ESO
Want more Dragonknight Builds? Check out our dedicated Dragonknight Builds overview page for even more great options!
