Powerful Dragonknight Tank Build for ESO – Elder Scrolls Online

Table of Contents

• Trials & Dungeons Setup
  • Gear
  • Skills
  • Scribing Skills
  • Champion Points
  • Important Info (Food, Mundus, Race, Potions, Passives, Attributes)
• Resource Management
• Blackrose Prison Arena Setup
• Infinite Archive Setup
• Dragonknight Subclassing
• Outfit Style Showcase
• Update Log

Welcome to the Dragonknight Tank Build PvE “Catalyst” for ESO (Elder Scrolls Online). Make sure to bookmark the link as I will keep updating the build for each new Update of ESO.

The ESO Dragonknight Tank Build Catalyst is optimized for Dungeons, Arenas, and Trials. Keep in mind there is a huge variety of different tank builds out there that synergize well depending on your group setup in ESO. Remember, each Trial, Dungeon, or Arena needs some small adjustments to the build. For example, if you think you need more health, go for it!

Other Tank Guides:

• All Tank Guides
• Beginner’s Tanking Guide
• Advanced Tanking Guide
• Endgame Tank Sets

Dragonknights are by far the most popular tanking class. Naturally, because of their skills and passives Dragonknights are just truly made for tanking. They have a lot of good shields that they can apply to themselves and the group which helps with survival.

Dragonknights also have strong self-healing and very good resource management through passives, which I will explain in more detail in the resource management section. More resistance and increased amount of damage that you can block are also included in the passives. If you go through the Draconic Power & Earthen Heart Class skill line you will notice that fairly quickly.

Dragonknights also have a very unique skill called Unrelenting Grip that they can use to pull enemies toward the groups. And let us not forget about Magma Armor, the god mode ultimate where you can’t die for the next few seconds if things get tricky.

• Trial, Dungeon & Arena
• Tank/ Support Build
• Heavy Armor
• Great Sustain
• Great Survivability
• Great Self Healing
• Great Shielding

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Trials & Dungeons Setup Dragonknight Tank Build

In this section, we are going to take a look at the ESO Dragonknight Tank Build setup.

5x Perf. Lucent Echoes, 5x Powerful Assault, 2x Archdruid, 2x Perf. Defensive Posture with Bewitched Sugar Skills on a Nord.

• Unbuffed: Out of combat, buff-food active.
• Buffed: In combat, Raid Target Dummy buffs, Balance, Powerful Assault, and Tri-Stat Potions are active.

Gear Dragonknight Tank Build

• Beginner Gear (Craftable only)
• Advanced Gear
• Best-In-Slot Gear

Beginner Gear

Our Beginner Gear only includes craftable sets. I recommend replacing these sets with any of the advanced gear items as soon as possible.

 

Where can I get the gear?

Fortified Brass: Craftable
Druid’s Braid: Craftable

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Advanced Gear

Our Advanced Gear only includes craftable, overland, dungeon, and arena gear. These are generally easier to get.

 

Where can I get the gear?

Turning Tide: Shipwright’s Regret Dungeon
Powerful Assault: Tel Var Merchant
Puncturing Remedy: normal Dragonstar Arena
Tremorscale: vet Volenfell Dungeon

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Best-in-Slot Gear

For our Best-in-Slot Gear we are using very powerful sets. It is important to understand that there are plenty of good ESO Tanking sets. Below is one of the great set combos that you can use with this build:

• Perf. Lucent Echoes: When you have more than 50% health, boosts group damage; when you have less than 50% health, boosts your damage reduction against monsters by 20%.
• Powerful Assault: This is used on the back bar and triggers with Echoing Vigor. It boosts the damage of the group.
• Perf. Defensive Position: Restores magicka when you reflect or absorb a spell via Defensive Stance.
• Archdruid Devyric: When you deal damage with a Heavy Attack, an AoE appears and applies Major Vulnerability, increasing the damage you deal to enemies.
•  Reduce Spell Cost: This is important because we have plenty of magicka based skills that we use.

 

Where can I get the gear?

Perf. Lucent Echoes: vet Lucent Citadel
Powerful Assault: Tel Var Merchant
Perf. Defensive Position: Asylum Sanctorium
Archdruid Devyric: Earthen Root Enclave Dungeon

Skills ESO Dragonknight Tank Build

Make sure to adjust your skills to your needs, this setup is not maced into stone, make sure to adjust skills depending on the situation of a fight.

Skills explanation:

• Green Dragon Blood: While active, you receive a 12% healing received due to the Burning Heart passive. Also gives you an insane burst heal if needed.
• Defensive Stance – Absorbs a projectile, increases block damage, and reduces block cost. Also activates Perf. Defensive Position.
• Pierce Armor: Your main taunt, also debuffs the enemy with Major Breach, reducing Spell and Physical Resistance by 5948.
• Igneous Shield: Big Shield that can Absorb a lot of damage and also gives you Major Mending, increasing your healing by 16% for the next 2,5s. You could also choose the other morph if you want an extended Major Mending uptime (Fragmented Shield)!
• Heoric Slash: When activated adds Minor Heroism, increasing your Ultigen and also adds Minor Maim to the enemy, reducing his damage done.
• Magma Shell: Use this Ultimate in tough situations, gives you god-mode for 12 seconds.
• Echoing Vigor: Applies an AoE heal and also activates the set Powerful Assault.
• Elemental Blockade: If you are using a frost staff, this can proc Minor Brittle and Minor Maim on the enemy, which increases enemy critical damage taken and reduces enemy damage. Also provides a small shield to allies.
• Inner Rage: This is your ranged taunt, in case you can not get to a mob fast enough.
• Unrelenting Grip: This is your chain to pull enemies to you, very reliable and helps kill mobs faster.
• Balance: One of the most important skills for this setup. If you use Balance you restore 3000 Magicka and you gain Major Resolve to increase your physical and spell resistance by 5948. IMPORTANT: Be aware that when you use the skill, that all shields and healing will be cut in half for the next 4 seconds.

Why no Volatile Armor? The Balance skill gives you the same armor buffs as Volatile Armor, it is also very essential to the build, as it literally gives you INFINITE sustain.

Scribing Skills

The ESO Scribing System offers plenty of adjustable skills to add to our build. The Scribing Skills aren’t a must have. There are some viable options that you can use in certain situations for tank builds.

Important: Please read here how to get Grimoires, Focus Scripts, Signature Scripts and Affix Scripts for the ESO Scribing system.

Base Scribing Skill useful to our build:

• World: Soul Burst and Wield Soul
• Mages Guild: Ulfsild’s Contingency
• Fighters Guild: Torchbearer

The skills are unlocked by:

• Soul Burst: Complete Final ESO Scribing Quest
• Wield Soul: Complete ESO Scribing Tutorial Quest
• Ulfsild’s Contingency: Reach Mages Guild Rank 5
• Torchbearer: Reach Fighters Guild Rank 5

Soul Burst (Leashing Burst)

Soul Burst turns into Leashing Burst by adding the following scripts below. This is an AoE centered around you and pulls all targets to you, reduces their movement speed and interrupts casting enemies. Great against trash packs.

• Focus Script
  • Pull
• Signature Script
  • Hunter’s Snare
• Affix Script
  • Interrupt

Wield Soul (Leashing Soul)

Wield Soul turns into Leashing Soul by adding the following scripts below. With our Scribing Scripts, we taunt the enemy and pull them to us. We also restore resources and apply Major Cowardice on the enemy, reducing their damage by a large amount.

• Focus Script
  • Pull
• Signature Script
  • Druid’s Resurgence
• Affix Script
  • Cowardice

Ulfsild’s Contingency (Warding Contingency)

Ulfsild’s Contingency turns into Warding Contingency by adding the following scripts below. You apply a rune to yourself. When an enemy hits you the rune triggers and grants a damage shield to you and allies. It also reduces damage by 8% and grants you Minor Protection, reducing damage even further by 5%.

• Focus Script
  • Damage Shield
• Signature Script
  • Gladiator’s Tenacity
• Affix Script
  • Protection

Torchbearer (Heroic Torch)

Torchbearer turns into Heroic Torch by adding the following scripts below. It generates 1 Ultimate to you and your allies with every sweep. It also reduces damage taken by 30% for a short duration and grants Minor Heroism, generating 1 Ultimate every 1.5 seconds.

• Focus Script
  • Generate Ultimate
• Signature Script
  • Gladiator’s Tenacity
• Affix Script
  • Heroism

 

Champion Points for the DK Tank Build

Below you can find the Champion Points setup for this build. Work your way from top to bottom in your allocation. For more information on Champion Points, please visit the Champion Points Overview Page on ESO-Hub.com.

Important:

• Warfare Tree: This tree gives you a mix between damage, healing and damage mitigation.
• Fitness Tree: This tree gives you extra health, sustain and defensive buffs.
• Craft Tree: This tree is mostly optional, nothing really “impacts” combat, therefore you can pick whatever you prefer, or use the preset below.
• Perks: Hovering over each perk will give you insights on what it does. Presets are also provided for each of the allocations below.

Click the tab below to open the allocation.

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Important Info for Dragonknight Tank Build PvE “Catalyst”

Buff-food

In general, most Tanks like to go with max resource buff foods such as the Bewitched Sugar Skulls or the cheaper version Longfin pasty with Melon Sauce. However, you could also use Jewels of Misrule which provides Health and a lot of Magicka and Stamina recovery.

Longfin pasty with Melon Sauce (Max Health+Max Stamina+Max Magicka)

Bewitched Sugar Skulls

The Bewitched Sugar Skulls is a slightly more advanced version that has a bit higher stats and also includes health recovery. Though it also costs more.

You can also visit the Buff Food and Drinks Overview Page for more information on all food and drinks.

Mundus Stone

You  have two good options when it comes to tanking. The Lord Mundus Stone (Extra HP) to The Atronach Mundus Stone (Magicka Recovery). For an overview of all the Mundus Stones in ESO you can check out the Mundus Stone Overview Page.

Because we have a lot of magicka based abilities, I recommend using The Atronach Mundus Stone.

Best if you don’t need extra HP

• The Atronach Mundus Stone (Magicka Recovery)
  • Increases Magicka recovery by 310
    With 7 Divine armor pieces:

    Increases Magicka recovery by 507

Best if you need extra HP

• The Lord Mundus Stone (Max Health)
  • Increases Maximum Health by 2225
    With 7 Divine armor pieces:

    Increases Maximum Health by 3639

Race

You can find more about racial passives in the ESO Race Overview page.

Nord
Argonian
Imperial
Orc
Redguard
Dark Elf

Potions

For hard content, I recommend using crafted or crown store Tri-Stat potions.

Tri-Stat Potion
(Health, Stamina, Magicka)
(Bugloss, Columbine, Mountain Flower)

 

Passives

• Ardent Flame: World in Ruin
• Draconic Power: Iron Skin, Burning Heart, Elder Dragon, Scaled Armor
• Earthen Heart: Eternal Mountain, Battle Roar, Mountain’s Blessing, Helping Hands
• One Hand and Shield: Fortress, Sword and Board, Deadly Bash, Deflect Bolts, Battlefield Mobility
• Destruction Staff: Penetrating Magic, Elemental Force, Ancient Knowledge, Destruction Expert (Note: Do not activate Tri Focus passive)
• Heavy Armor: Resolve, Constitution, Juggernaut, Revitalize, Rapid Mending
• Medium Armor:  If you have spare skillpoints, max out this skill line too.
• Light Armor: If you have spare skillpoints, max out this skill line too.
• Mages Guild: Mage Adept
• Undaunted: Undaunted Command, Undaunted Mettle
• Racial: All
• Alchemy: Medicinal Use

Attributes

You have to make sure to have a bit more Stamina than Magicka. Because the Synergies you pick up give you back whatever stat is higher. You can change this to your liking, if you do not need that much health, get more stamina.

20 Magicka, 30 Health, 14 Stamina

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Resource Management for the ESO Dragonknight Tank Build

Dragonknights have insane resource management compared to other tank classes.

Battle Roar returns resources when we use an Ultimate and Helping Hands passive returns Stamina when we use the Igneous Shield skill. These two mechanics alone already outperform other tank classes by a huge margin.

Energy Orb is a skill that Healers use to throw into the group. You can use the synergy this skill provides to regain around 4000 resources. Our max Stamina is a bit higher than our Max Magicka, that is because you will get resources depending on your higher max Stamina or Magicka. And because we are a tank, Stamina is definitely more important.

Heavy Attacks restore a big amount of stamina, if you hit an off-balanced enemy it gives twice the amount back. You don’t need to permablock, try to find time to do Heavy Attacks in your rotation.

Potions are also a key to managing your resources well, I recommend using Tri-Stat potions to regain all three resources at the same time. Further below you will learn how to craft the right potions.

This build has very low Magicka Recovery because we use Balance to manage our Magicka resources and additionally boost our resistances.

• Battle Roar Passive
• Helping Hands Passive
• Orbs (Undaunted skill-line)
• Heavy Attacks
• Potions
• Balance

Choosing an Argonian as a race for your tank will also increase sustain due to the Resourceful racial passive.

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Blackrose Prison Arena Setup

Make sure to check out the full Blackrose Prison Arena Guide where I also talk about tank specific tips for the Arena.

Your main job in the Arena is to position the monsters correctly so your damage dealers can focus on AoE damage. Therefore you will need your Spell Symmetry and Unrelenting Grip a lot. Spell Symmetry helps regain magicka quickly and reduces the cost of your next chain cast. (Please keep in mind in the normal setup we use Balance, so you might want to change to this morph in this arena)

To optimize the time that you can spend on using Spell Symmetry and chaining, we are using the Mighty Chudan Monster Set. Having permanent Major Ward and Major Resolve (Increased Spell and Physical Resistance by 5948) is good, because that way we do not need to use another skill (such as Volatile Armor like usually) that costs magicka to keep those two very important buffs up. Therefore you can focus more on chaining. In addition, Mighty Chudan also gives you even more resistance (1487 Resistance and another health bonus (1206 extra health).

We are using Drake’s Rush to increase overall ultimate regeneration a lot. The second set is up to you. I can recommend Battalion Defender which really boosts your overall heals for the whole group or Akaviri Dragonguard to get reduced ultimate cost or sets like War Machine or Powerful Assault. You might wonder if Alkosh is a good choice for the Arena, I can not recommend it as with a team of four players, synergies are rare and it is hard to keep up the Alkosh debuff on the bosses, therefore War Machine or Power Assault are the better choices.

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ESO Dragonknight Subclassing Build Options

ESO’s Subclassing offers a lot of variety, allowing you to swap, mix, and match different skill lines of various classes all on one character. Read our How does Subclassing work in ESO guide to get an understanding of how the subclass system works. We also have plenty of ESO Builds optimized for Subclassing.

Take a look at our ESO Dragonknight Subclassing Build if you are interested in what you can all mix and match on a Dragonknight build!

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