ESO: Dragonknight as the Melee DPS, tips, skills ESO guide, tips

Dragonknight as the Melee DPS: General information, Active skills - the first weapons set, the second weapons set, Explanation of the skills, How to build a DPS Dragonknight?

Last update: 07 July 2020

This page of our guide to The Elder Scrolls Online has a recommended build for the Dragonknight class. It turns Dragonknight into a Melee DPS character focused on dealing massive damage with melee weapons. We have prepared general information about this character build and listed the most useful skills.

• General information
• Active skills - the first weapons set
• Active skills - the second weapons set
• Explanation of the skills
• How to build a DPS Dragonknight?

General information

Thanks to the abilities, Dragonknight is perfect for dealing high damage from fire, while remaining a tough and resistant target. Many of the active abilities (and the majority of the passive ones), used in this section, are identical with the ones described in the case of the tank build. In both cases, use the sword and the shield.

This set is perfect for gaining experience/items, because you are then capable to focus a lot of enemies on you and pulverize them, in a matter of seconds, while taking low damage in the process, because you are very well-protected.

Active skills - the first weapons set

Icon	Ability name (after the recommended metamorphosis)
	Corrosive Armor
	Sea of Flames
	Burning Embers
	Engulfing Flames
	Burning Talons
	Volatile Armor

Active skills - the second weapons set

Icon	Ability name (after the recommended metamorphosis)
	Standard of Might
	Igneous Weapons
	Flame Lash
	Draw Essence
	Green Dragon Blood
	Eruption

In addition to the above ability sets, invest in the following passive abilities (from the One Hand and Shield, Imperial and Heavy Armor trees):

1. Iron Skin
2. Kindling
3. Warmth
4. Searing Heat
5. World in Flame
6. Burning Heart
7. Elder Dragon
8. Scaled Armor
9. Battle Roar
10. Eternal Mountain
11. Mountain's Blessing
12. Helping Hands
13. Sword and Board - raises the damage that you deal and block, when you are using the sword and the shield.
14. Deflective Bolts - increases the value of the blocked damage from bolts.
15. Deadly Bash - shield bash (the attack while blocking) deals higher damage and costs less stamina.
16. Fortress - decreases the cost of blocking and using of abilities, while using the sword and the shield.
17. Constitution - increases the regeneration of health, per each element of heavy armor that you wear.
18. Bracing - decreases the cost of blocking, if you are wearing, at least 5 elements of heavy armor.
19. Juggernaut - increases the power of melee attacks, per each element of heavy armor that you wear.
20. Rapid Mending - increases the amount of healing that you receive, per each element of heavy armor that you wear.
21. Red Diamond - your melee attacks have a chance of healing you.
22. Resolve - raises the armor and resistance to magic per each element of heavy armor that you wear.
23. Shield Affinity - increases the income of experience in the One Handed and Shield tree.
24. Tough - increases the maximum amount of health.
25. Conditioning - increases the maximum amount of stamina.

Explanation of the skills

This first set of abilities focuses on dealing as much damage, as possible, from fire. Start your attack with Engulfing Flames, to deal damage from fire and mark the enemies, thanks to which they will be receiving an additional 10% of damage from fire, dealt by the other abilities. Then, activate Sea of Flames, to deal damage from fire, to all the nearby enemies - additionally, each killed enemy regenerates your mana, if this ability is active.

Once you have gathered all the enemies around you, activate Volatile Armor and Burning Talons, which will increase the protective statistics of your armor, while wounding the nearby enemies, and to pin them to the ground, to prevent them from scattering. Thanks to this, you will be able to focus the damage that you deal, on the largest group possible, at one take. If you get a severe beating-to from the enemies, activate the Corrosive Armor ultimate ability, thanks to which you will decrease the damage that you receive and deal it to the enemies.

The abilities of the second set, and especially the Igneous Weapons and Green Dragon Blood serve as a support - the former increases the damage that you deal, while making your attack wound the enemy with fire. The latter will heal you and increase your health regeneration rate. Draw Essence will allow you to regenerate magicka with each blow that you land which, in combination with Sea of Flames should keep the amounts of magicka at appropriate levels. If the enemies deal too much damage to you, or if you have focused too many of them on you, use Eruption, which decreases their speed and chances to hit you.

Use this build if you want to score experience on your own, because it is designed to a solo combat. Still, you can use it in combat but, you will have to be smart, while doing that - the amount of damage that you deal, and crowd control with the Burning Talons may introduce quite a chaos in the enemy lines, which will make things more difficult for your tank.

How to build a DPS Dragonknight?

Apart from appropriate abilities, you also need to ensure an appropriate distribution of points and a good choice of weapons:

1. Distribute evenly statistics points into magicka and health - stamina is the least important, because you will not be using the "regular" abilities and what you have, should be enough for blocking. Invest 10 points into stamina and distribute the rest between magicka and health.
2. Wear heavy armor only - it offers the highest bonus to armor and also harmonizes perfectly with the passive abilities, presented in this chapter. Even if your armor exceeds the threshold (it is then highlighted in orange, the so called Overcharge), you are going to need each and every points, because your role is to get the whipping for the whole party.
3. Enchant the armor in a way that allows you to make up for the missing statistics - enchant some of the armor elements with Magicka and Stamina, because you have already invested the points in health. If you fell that the rest of the resources are sufficient, and you can put some of the points into the resistance of some of the elements of the armor, do that - you can never have too much health. when it comes to jewelry, again, enchant it to make it suit your needs - if you are low on stamina/magicka/health regeneration, add these statistics to the jewelry. You can also invest in decreasing the cost of abilities) depending on the type of ability - "Reduce Stamina / Magicka cost of abilities").
4. Use the sword and the shield in combat, only - a lot of the abilities that you are using are based on them. Apart from that, you will also have more armor and you are going to find it easier to block attacks )which is your main role). Put the sword and the armor into both of the weapons slots.
5. While crafting armor (or buying it), try to obtain useful traits, like (in the case of armor) Impenetrable (resistance to critical hits) or Reinforced (increased armor value on the item). As for the weapon, an useful trait is Precise (increases the chance of scoring a critical hit), Defending (increases the overall resistance and resistance to magic, by a percent value), or Sharpened (increases the armor piercing and resistance to magic).