Hyperioxes
Home DPS One Bar Breath Dragonknight

One Bar Breath Dragonknight
DPS Build

DPS Pure Class Magicka One Bar Dragonknight
Last updated: Update 49 - 10th March 2026
Tooltips of new abilities and passives will be wrong until 9th of March, which is when Update 49 launches

One Bar Magicka Dragonknight DPS Build built around the reworked Engulfing Dragonfire ability, a channeled fire breath attack that ramps up in damage over 4.8 seconds and synergizes with the Take Flight ultimate. Same core as the full Breath Dragonknight build, just condensed to one bar.

Obviously weaker than the two bar version, but still competitive for a One Bar build in ESO Update 49. This is the version you should use if you hate bar swapping.

This build parses 125k DPS with Medium Armor and 121k with Light Armor on the Iron Atronach dummy.

Advertisement

Skill Setups

Base Setup

A base setup that will work for most situations and which should be your starting point when making situational setups

Front Bar Back Bar
Slot 1: Engulfing Dragonfire Slot 1: Molten Whip
Slot 2: Searing Claw
Slot 3: Shatterspike Mantle
Slot 4: Incinerate
Slot 5: Banner Bearer
Ultimate: Take Flight
Info
Situational
Rotation

Final Setups

A few examples of final setups you could end up with after applying the situational skills to the base setup

Front Bar Back Bar
Slot 1: Engulfing Dragonfire Slot 1: Molten Whip
Slot 2: Quick Cloak
Slot 3: Shatterspike Mantle
Slot 4: Incinerate
Slot 5: Banner Bearer
Ultimate: Take Flight

What Changes

Passives

Some trees are only needed when using situational skills, for example Fighters Guild provides nothing without Barbed Trap

Class

Weapon

Armor

Guild

Alliance War

Racial

Craft

Class - Ardent Flame

Combustion - High Priority

Traumatic Burns - High Priority

Fan the Flames - High Priority

A Soul Ablaze - High Priority

Gear

Base Setup

A base setup that will work for most situations and which should be your starting point when making situational setups. It assumes your group provides Major Breach, Minor Breach, Infused Crusher and nothing more

Switching gear for trash packs isn't worth it unless you're using gear-swap addons

This setup parsed 121,119 DPS

Alternative

Final Setups

A few examples of final setups you could end up with after applying situational rules to the base setup

This is the crafted gear setup you can start with

The crafted setup parses 103,496 DPS

When using it, replace Searing Claw with Barbed Trap since this setup doesn't get Minor Force from Velothi Ur-Mage's Amulet.

Skill Setup

Champion Points

Warfare
Master-at-Arms
6% Direct Damage
Because more than 60% of your damage is Direct
Biting Aura
6% AoE Damage
Because more than 60% of your damage is AoE
Wrathful Strikes
205 Weapon and Spell Damage
Next strongest CP damage-wise
Fighting Finesse
8% Critical Damage and Healing
Next strongest CP damage-wise
Critical Damage Cap
Replace Fighting Finesse with Exploiter if your supports are providing enough Critical Damage for you to reach the 125% cap without Fighting Finesse
More Healing
Reaving Blows is a decent Champion Point if you need more HPS
Fitness
Boundless Vitality
1400 Max Health
Survivability
Fortified
1731 Armor
Survivability
Celerity
10% Movement Speed
Boosts your Cavalier's Charge
Rejuvenation
90 Health, Stamina and Magicka Recovery
Sustain
Sustain in add-heavy fights
Bloody Renewal and Siphoning Spells are good sustain CPs for dungeon fights with lots of adds
Craft
Steed's Blessing
20% Movement Speed out of combat
Extremely useful utility
Quality of Life
Green Champion Points don't affect Combat, choose whatever Quality of Life you prefer

Race

The difference between best and worst race is about 5% of DPS and there is no content in the entire game that you'd be blocked from completing because of choosing a bad race.

High Elf
Best for 12-Man
High Elf
Why pick this
Provides Max Magicka and Weapon/Spell Damage. In Trials that's usually stronger than Khajiit's Critical Damage racial, because with 4 supports your team will (usually) provide enough Critical Damage buffs for you to reach the cap regardless
Spell Recharge ~104 lower resource per second, 5% less damage taken while channeling
Syrabane's Boon 2000 Max Magicka
Elemental Talent 258 Weapon & Spell Damage
Dark Elf
Best for 12-Man
Dark Elf
Why pick this
Provides Max Magicka and Weapon/Spell Damage. In Trials that's usually stronger than Khajiit's Critical Damage racial, because with 4 supports your team will (usually) provide enough Critical Damage buffs for you to reach the cap regardless
Dynamic 1910 Max Stamina & Magicka
Resist Flame 4620 Flame Resistance
Ruination 258 Weapon & Spell Damage
Khajiit
Best for 4-Man
Khajiit
Why pick this
Khajiit's Critical Damage is more valuable than High Elf/Dark Elf's Weapon/Spell Damage in 4-man content, because it's unlikely your two supports (or in many cases a single support) will be able to provide enough Critical Damage buffs for you to reach the 125% Critical Damage cap
Feline Ambush 12% Critical Damage
Nimble 915 Max Health, Stamina and Magicka
Robustness 90 Health, Stamina, Magicka Recovery

Other decent options

Orc
Orc
Brawny 1000 Max Stamina
Unflinching Rage 1000 Max Health, ~531 Healing per Second
Swift Warrior 258 Weapon & Spell Damage, -12% Sprint Cost, +10% Sprint Speed
Breton
Breton
Gift of Magnus 2000 Max Magicka
Spell Attunement 2310 Spell Resistance (doubled when Burning, Concussed or Chilled), 310 Magicka Recovery
Magicka Mastery -7% Magicka Cost

Mundus

The Thief
Default
The Thief
7.5% Critical Chance (12.2% with Divines)
When to use
Use in all content

Attributes

You should always put all 64 attribute points into Magicka.

Health
0
Stamina
0
Magicka
64
All points into Magicka

Food

Your sustain can vary greatly because it's impacted by your race, the amount of synergies provided by your teammates, and by your armor type. Choose the food with more Magicka Recovery if you can't sustain.

Max Health Max Magicka
Use for most content. Solitude Salmon-Millet Soup is a cheaper alternative.
Need Sustain
Max Health Max Magicka Magicka Recovery
Use when you need more sustain. Witchmother's Potent Brew is a cheaper alternative.
Full Damage
Max Magicka
Max Magicka only. Use for parsing or content where you can get away without Max Health. Ghastly Eye Bowl adds Magicka Recovery if needed, at the cost of some of the Max Magicka.

Potions

Weapon Power Potion
Default Weapon Power Potion
Restore Stamina Major Brutality Weapon Critical

Most of the time you should use the Weapon Power potions. They'll improve your Stamina sustain and provide Major Brutality which is crucial.

Spell Power Potion
Situational Spell Power Potion
Restore Magicka Major Sorcery Spell Critical

Spell Power potions are very similar to Weapon Power potions, except they improve your Magicka sustain instead of Stamina sustain. The drawback is that the Major Sorcery they provide doesn't stack with your Minor Brutality from Elder Dragon passive, so they're only equivalent to Weapon Power potions if there's someone in your team using the Dawn's Wrath skill line and providing Minor Sorcery with Illuminate passive.

Heroism Potion
Full Damage Heroism Potion
Minor Heroism Restore Stamina Restore Magicka

Heroism potions restore both Stamina and Magicka and can provide 100% uptime on Minor Heroism, allowing you to use a different Affix script on your Banner Bearer, however you'll need another source of Major Brutality or Sorcery, like for example yours or a groupmate's Igneous Weapons. You could also put Brutality and Sorcery on your own Banner Bearer, in which case we're back to square one in terms of buffs, but now our potions restore both Stamina and Magicka. This approach is straight up stronger but isn't recommended as part of regular setup because of how expensive Heroism potions are.

Tri-Stat Potion
Situational Tri-Stat Potion
Restore Health Restore Stamina Restore Magicka

Tri-Stat potions are basically Heroism potions without the Minor Heroism, and they're much cheaper. You can use them if you want potions which restore both Stamina and Magicka and you're already getting Major Brutality/Sorcery from somewhere else.

Armor Potion
Survivability Armor Potion
Restore Health +5280 Armor

If you want to greatly improve your survivability you can instead use Armor Potions. You'll need another source of Major Brutality/Sorcery and most likely you'll also have to slot Soul of Flame, or get more sustain in other ways.

Parses

All parses are recorded on the 21 million Target Dummy

Single Target, Medium Armor
124,988DPS
Target: 21mil Iron Atronach Dummy

Single Target, Medium Armor setup

CMX Parse
CMX Parse - Regular
CMX Setup
CMX Setup - Regular
Recording
Parse recording
Regular (Whorl)
121,119DPS
Target: 21mil Iron Atronach Dummy

Regular (Whorl) gear with standard skill setup

CMX Parse
CMX Parse - Whorl of the Depths
CMX Setup
CMX Setup - Whorl of the Depths
No Trial Gear (Tide-Born)
115,264DPS
Target: 21mil Iron Atronach Dummy

No Trial Gear using Tide-Born setup

CMX Parse
CMX Parse - Tide-Born
CMX Setup
CMX Setup - Tide-Born
Crafted
103,496DPS
Target: 21mil Iron Atronach Dummy

Crafted gear only setup

CMX Parse
CMX Parse - Crafted
CMX Setup
CMX Setup - Crafted

Gameplay

Here you can see this build in action

Kyne's Aegis
Trial
Kyne's Aegis
Trial Veteran

THANKS FOR READING

If you've enjoyed this guide and want to support me, you can do so through Patreon. Your support will help me produce more guides.