ESO: Dragonknight, tips, skills ESO guide, tips
Dragonknight: General information, Ardent Flame tree, Draconic Power tree, Earthen Heart tree
Last update: 07 July 2020
This page of The Elder Scrolls Online guide has all the most important information about the Dragonknight class. Here you can find general information about this class as well as the list of all active and passive skills along with their descriptions.
General information
Dragonknight is one, of four, available character classes in the game. What it resembles most, is a typical warrior - you will be spending the majority of time, among hordes of enemies, while concentrating their attacks on yourself (if you play as a tank), or by dealing AoE damage over short distance (if your character is a DPS). Of course nothing stands in your way of you making the Dragonknight fight with the bow, attack with dagger or define it as a purely support character, who boosts up the statistics of allies and casts debuffs on enemies.
Like each of the classes in the game, Dragonknight has access to three unique ability trees - Adrent Flame, Draconic Power and Earthen Heart.
Ardent Flame tree
Below you can find active and passive skills offered by the Ardent Flame, one of the skill trees for the Dragonknight class.
Active skills
Icon | Ability name | Ability description |
 | Dragonknight Standard (ultimate) | Throws down a standard from the skies, which deals magical damage to nearby enemies and decreases the potency of their healing ability. An ally can activate the standard, which deals additional damage from magic and immobilizes enemies. |
 | Fiery Grip | You pull the enemy towards yourself and deal damage from fire. |
 | Searing Strike | You burn the enemy and deal damage from fire. Then, you set them on fire and deal more damage from fire, for several seconds. |
Fiery Breath | With a gust of fire, you wound the enemies in front of you, deal damage from fire and set them on fire, which deals additional damage from fire, for several seconds. | |
 | Lava Whip | You deal damage from fire and, additionally, knock the enemy off balance, if they were previously stunned or immobilized. |
 | Inferno | You initiate a halo of fire, which deals damage from fire, to all the nearby enemies. This ability consumes mana per each second that it is being active and it can be disabled at any moment. |
Passive skills
Icon | Ability name | Ability description |
 | Kindling | Increases damage from the burning effect. |
 | Warmth | Damage from fire, which you deal, snare the enemy. |
 | Searing Heat | Enhances the burning effect of the Fiery Breath, Searing Strike and Dragonknight Standard abilities |
 | World in Flame | Enhances damage from all of your AoE fire abilities. |
Explanation
The Ardent Flame tree is centered around dealing damage from fire and on casting debuffs on the enemy. All of the active abilities in this tree deal damage from fire only. This is why, you need to turn your attention to passive abilities, which perfectly harmonize with them. By investing your points in passive abilities, you increase damage from fire, extend the duration of some of the abilities, and also cast the Snare effect on the enemy (explained in the "Statuses" section in this guide).
The abilities of the Ardent Flame tree, focus on dealing the greatest possible damage, which makes it a perfect choice for the players that prefer lonely fight - save some of the abilities that impose slight effects of crowd control (CC), they will not allow you to heal yourself, drag away too many opponents, nor do they offer any defensive bonuses, or preventing from supporting the party. Still, they are perfect in PvP, due to the abundance of damage from fire that they deal.
Draconic Power tree
Below you can find active and passive skills offered by the Draconic Power, one of the skill trees for the Dragonknight class.
Active skills
Icon | Ability name | Ability description |
 | Dragon Leap (ultimate) | Your character jumps up and falls down to the ground, while dealing considerable damage from fire and throwing the enemies, which receive damage from it, away. This ability has a minimum range threshold - this means that you cannot activate it while aiming at the opponent within arm's reach. |
 | Spiked Armor | Enhances your armor's resistance and reflects, back to the enemy, damage that they deal to you. |
 | Dark Talons | You immobilize the nearby enemies for several seconds, while dealing damage from magic to them. An ally can then activate the Impale Synergy ability, to deal additional damage to the immobilized enemies. |
 | Dragon Blood | It immediately regenerates 33% of your health, for the duration of a dozen-or-so seconds. |
 | Reflective Scales | For several seconds, it reflects the incoming projectiles. |
 | Inhale | You absorb health points from the nearby enemies and after 2.5 seconds, you deal damage from magic to them. |
Passive skills
Icon | Ability name | Ability description |
 | Iron Skin | Increases the amount of damage that you are capable of blocking. |
 | Burning Heart | Enhances the healing ability that you receive for each ability from the Draconic Power tree, on your ability bar. |
 | Elder Dragon | Enhances your passive health regeneration, for each ability from the Draconic Power tree, on your ability bar. |
 | Scaled Armor | Increases your immunity to magic. |
Explanation
The Dragonic Power tree is meant to increase your statistics and it is every tank's dream. The active abilities (apart from the ultimate one) do not deal too much damage - they are rather centered around imposing CC effects on the enemies and help you keep their attention on yourself. The Dark Talons ability is one of the most powerful CC ones in the game - it allows toy to keep the enemies on you endlessly, which drags them away from your allies, while dealing quite decent damage.
The Spiked Armor is the ability that you are going to use most frequently, both while playing solo and in party. It offers a gigantic bonus to the armor (and after being upgraded, it reaches absurd values) and reflects damage back to the attacker which, in fact, increases damage dealt by you. Dragon Blood allows you to heal when situation is critical - with appropriate amounts of mana, you will be virtually invincible, which is also going to make your healer's job easier. Inhale, apart from healing, also allows you to deal considerable damage to nearby enemies.
Passive abilities are useful to any character that fights at close quarters. Iron Skin allows you to absorb more damage, while blocking, Scaled Armor enhances your immunity to magic, which makes for a more comfortable fight against mages. Burning Heart and Elder Dragon enhance your health regeneration and the amount of health that you receive, while healing, on condition that you have an ability, from the Dragonic Power tree, in your ability bar (which is rather obvious, considering their effectiveness).
The downside of this tree is the lower amount of damage that you are capable of dealing to enemies, especially if compared to the previous tree. Still, these abilities will often come in handy.
Earthen Heart tree
Below you can find active and passive skills offered by the Earthen Heart, one of the skill trees for the Dragonknight class.
Active skills
Icon | Ability name | Ability description |
 | Magma Armor (ultimate) | Decreases damage that you receive, while restricting it to the value of several percents, and also deals damage from fire to the nearby enemies. |
 | Stonefist | You throw a stone at the enemy, deal physical damage and knock them down. |
 | Molten Weapons | The aura that increases the damage dealt by your allies, whereas you, as the caster, receive a double bonus. |
 | Obsidian Shield | You summon a shield enclosing the nearby allies, which absorbs some of the damage. You, as the caster, receive a shield of double protection. |
 | Petrify | You stun the enemies, over a vast area, for a long duration (more than 10 seconds!). After you receive a predetermined amount of damage (or after the time passes) the stun effect is dispelled. |
 | Ash Cloud | You snare the nearby enemies and endow their attacks with a chance to miss. |
Passive skills
Icon | Ability name | Ability description |
 | Eternal Mountain | Extends the duration of all the abilities in the Earthen Heart tree. |
 | Battle Roar | After the ultimate ability is activated, you receive some of the amount of all of your assets (Health, Magicka, Stamina; depending on the amount of the ultimate points that you use up). |
 | Mountain's Blessing | You receive an ultimate point each time that you activate an ability from the Earthen Heart tree. |
 | Helping Hands | You receive stamina whenever any of your abilities, from the Earthen Heart tree, touches to an ally. |
Explanation
The Earthen Heart mainly focuses on supporting your allies and on crowd control. The ultimate ability allows you to decrease the amount of damage that you receive, to 3% of your maximum health, per hit, which you are going to find useful, while fighting bosses that can pack a blow.
The Molten Weapons and Obsidian Shield abilities are useful while fighting both solo and in group. The former provides you with a bonus to the damage that you deal, whereas the latter imposes on them (and you) a protective shield, which you are probably find useful, whenever you need to cut down on damage that your party receives, during the enemy AoE attacks.
Stonefist allows you to stun most of the enemies (with the exception of bosses). Petrify stuns all of the nearby enemies, for a long duration, and thanks to Ash Cloud, the enemies move slower and are more likely to miss. You are going to need these three abilities especially while playing as a tanks and you attempt to keep the enemy groups at bay.
Passive abilities extend the duration of the abilities of this tree, allow you to receive additional ultimate points and regenerate resources, whenever you are using these abilities. They also regenerate stamina, if they reach an ally.
Both active and passive abilities work perfectly during group fights, because they allow you to raise the effectiveness of both your character and the allied ones. Unfortunately, this takes place at the cost of, virtually, nonexistent damage that these abilities deal.