ONE BAR HEAVY ATTACK DRAGONKNIGHT SUBCLASS PVE DPS BUILD
Last updated: Update 48 - 8th December 2025
This build focuses on amplifying Heavy Attacks with the
Sergeants Mail item set,
Rakkhats Voidmantle Mythic and the Empower buff sourced from the
Might of the Guild passive, procced by constantly using
Ulfsild's Contingency.
SUBCLASSING
Combination
Dragonknight - Ardent Flame
Sorcerer - Storm Calling
Nightblade - Assassination
Base Class
This build can be used by characters who have either Dragonknight, Sorcerer or Nightblade as their base class, but if you're a Dragonknight you can utilize the Dragonknight
Class Mastery script on your
Banner Bearer which is stronger than the
Cavalier's Charge when facing multiple enemies.
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: Ulfsild's Contingency | Slot 1: Concealed Weapon |
| Slot 2: Flames of Oblivion | Slot 2: Molten Whip |
| Slot 3: Merciless Resolve | |
| Slot 4: Engulfing Flames | |
| Slot 5: Banner Bearer | |
| Ultimate: Standard of Might | Ultimate: Soul Harvest |
Ulfsild's Contingency (
Flame,
Lingering Torment,
Force) - your source of crucial Empower buff, which increases damage done by Heavy Attacks by 70%. Since
Ulfsild's Contingency is a Mages Guild skill, it will trigger the
Might of the Guild passive, which grants you Empower for 10 seconds. It also deals decent damage in an AoE and grants you Minor Force buff, increasing your Critical Damage by 10%.
Ulfsild's Contingency is delayed until the next skill cast but whenever it's needed you can activate it early by bashing your enemy. If you cast this ability as you're finishing your Heavy Attack, the Empower you gain from it will start working just in time to boost the final tick of that Heavy Attack you just finished
Flames of Oblivion - an ability which deals a lot of damage per cast, passively grants you Major Savagery and Prophecy, and grants you a
Molten Whip stack.
Merciless Resolve - an ability that will cause your Light and Heavy Attacks to generate stacks. You can spend 5 stacks to fire a powerful arrow that also heals you if you're in Melee range. It also grants you Major Savagery and Prophecy
Engulfing Flames - an AoE DoT which increases enemies' Flame damage taken by 6% and grants you a
Molten Whip stack.
Banner Bearer (
Magic,
Cavalier's Charge,
Berserk) - increases your Magical damage done by 6%, grants Weapon Damage based on your movement speed and grants Minor Berserk, increasing your damage done by 5%. You can change the
Berserk script to
Heroism if Minor Berserk is being provided by your supports. You can also use Class Mastery instead of Cavalier's Charge if your base class is Dragonknight. It grants Weapon Damage based on amount of enemies surrounding you and it reaches the Weapon Damage provided by Cavalier's Charge at 3 enemies. It also reduces your damage taken
Standard of Might - extremely powerful ultimate that deals damage over time, increases all of your damage done and decreases all of your damage taken
Concealed Weapon - an ability that will passively grant us 15% movement speed, which will grant us 90 Weapon and Spell Damage thanks to the
Cavalier's Charge script on
Banner Bearer
Molten Whip - an ability we'll keep slotted on backbar for its passive effect. At 3 stacks it will provide you with 300 Weapon and Spell Damage and the stacks will be kept up with
Engulfing Flames and
Flames of Oblivion
Soul Harvest - slotting this Ultimate on backbar will cause you to gain 10 Ultimate when killing enemies
- Whenever you need to slot situational skills, replace
Banner Bearer
Venomous Claw - a replacement for
Engulfing Flames for purely Single Target fights. Just like
Engulfing Flames it will grant you
Molten Whip stacks
Elemental Blockade - your source of Off Balance if supports aren't providing it. It requires enemies to be Concussed, so you'll have to use Shock enchant to proc it or rely on your teammates for that.
Critical Surge - a very strong self-heal. Use it when you need a self-heal because you're assigned to some duty which puts you far away from your group, or if your healers are bad. It also increases your Weapon and Spell Damage through the
Expert Mage passive
I don't use a static rotation so this is just a list of priorities. Simply recast abilities when they run out and follow this list of priorities when there are multiple things to refresh
If you're tracking the Off Balance debuff, you should cancel your Heavy Attack when there's around 1-2 seconds left on the Off Balance Immunity. This way the next Heavy Attack you start will finish its channel during Off Balance and you'll be able to fit 3 Heavy Attacks during a single Off Balance window
While the build works perfectly fine without it, reaching 125k DPS requires you to maintain
Molten Whip stacks. It means that sometimes you'll have to recast
Flames of Oblivion early so that your
Molten Whip stacks don't expire. Whenever the timers on your
Flames of Oblivion and
Molten Whip are equal, the timer on
Engulfing Flames/
Venomous Claw is higher than these two and your
Standard of Might isn't becoming ready in a few seconds, you have to recast
Flames of Oblivion after there's 5 seconds left on it, which is when it shoots out the second to last projectile. This way you're wasting the last projectile which would shoot out at 0 seconds but you're avoiding losing the 300 Weapon and Spell Damage from
Molten Whip
Priority List
- Use
Ulfsild's Contingency if your Empower is out or if it's going to run out by the end of the Heavy Attack you're channeling - Use
Standard of Might whenever it's ready - Use
Flames of Oblivion - Use
Engulfing Flames (or
Venomous Claw depending on your setup) - Use
Merciless Resolve if you have at least 5 stacks - Use
Ulfsild's Contingency as a filler
Pre-buff
These abilities can be pre-cast before entering combat
Final Setups
A few examples of final setups you could end up with after applying the situational skills to the base setup
A setup you should use when your supports aren't providing the crucial Off Balance debuff
| Front Bar | Back Bar |
|---|---|
| Slot 1: Ulfsild's Contingency | Slot 1: Concealed Weapon |
| Slot 2: Flames of Oblivion | Slot 2: Molten Whip |
| Slot 3: Merciless Resolve | |
| Slot 4: Engulfing Flames | |
| Slot 5: Elemental Blockade | |
| Ultimate: Standard of Might | Ultimate: Soul Harvest |
EXPLANATION:
Elemental Blockade replaces
Banner Bearer, so that you can apply Off Balance yourself
Example of a setup you can use for purely Single Target fights
| Front Bar | Back Bar |
|---|---|
| Slot 1: Ulfsild's Contingency | Slot 1: Concealed Weapon |
| Slot 2: Flames of Oblivion | Slot 2: Molten Whip |
| Slot 3: Merciless Resolve | |
| Slot 4: Venomous Claw | |
| Slot 5: Banner Bearer | |
| Ultimate: Standard of Might | Ultimate: Soul Harvest |
EXPLANATION:
Venomous Claw replaces
Engulfing Flames
PASSIVES
There are no passives you need to skip with this build
Class
Weapon
Armor
Guild
Alliance War
Racial
Craft
Class - Ardent Flame
Combustion - High Priority
Warmth - High Priority
Searing Heat - High Priority
World in Ruin - 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
Switching gear for trash packs isn't worth it unless you're using gear-swap addons
Default setup
| Gear Slot | Set | Weight/Type | Trait | Enchantment |
|---|---|---|---|---|
![]() Head |
Light | |||
![]() Shoulders |
Medium | |||
![]() Chest |
Light | |||
![]() Hands |
Light | |||
![]() Belt |
Light | |||
![]() Legs |
Light | |||
![]() Boots |
Light | |||
![]() Necklace |
Jewelry | |||
![]() Ring |
Jewelry | |||
![]() Ring |
Jewelry | |||
![]() Frontbar Main Hand |
Lightning Staff |
When choosing different situational sets you can only replace
Infallible Mage.
Sergeant’s Mail and
Rakkhat’s Voidmantle are too strong and too crucial for this build to ever be replaced. If you want to use a Medium Armor set, you have to make sure your group is providing enough penetration
Infallible Mage parses 114.7k DPS which is roughly 10k lower than the top setup which is
Slivers of Null Arca, but
Slivers of Null Arca is focused on Single Target damage and it's a Medium set so when using it, you have to make sure your supports are providing you with enough penetration. Because of that,
Infallible Mage is the most practical set.
Gear that can be stronger than the setup from the table in specific situations or when specific circumstances are present
Sul-Xan’s Torment - the best set for trash packs and for bosses that regularly spawn smaller adds
Slivers of Null Arca - the best set for Single Target damage
Gear that is easier to obtain and can be used while you work towards the best gear
Crafted:
All of these are tradable and can be bought from other players
Dungeons:
PvP:
All of these are tradable and can be bought from other players
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
| Gear Slot | Set | Weight/Type | Trait | Enchantment |
|---|---|---|---|---|
![]() Head |
Light | |||
![]() Shoulders |
Light | |||
![]() Chest |
Medium | |||
![]() Hands |
Light | |||
![]() Belt |
Light | |||
![]() Legs |
Light | |||
![]() Boots |
Light | |||
![]() Necklace |
Jewelry | |||
![]() Ring |
Jewelry | |||
![]() Ring |
Jewelry | |||
![]() Frontbar Main Hand |
Lightning Staff |
The crafted setup parses 84.6k DPS, although a huge majority of this DPS loss stems from lack of
Sergeant’s Mail
This is a setup you should use if you don't have access to any Trial gear
| Gear Slot | Set | Weight/Type | Trait | Enchantment |
|---|---|---|---|---|
![]() Head |
Light | |||
![]() Shoulders |
Medium | |||
![]() Chest |
Light | |||
![]() Hands |
Light | |||
![]() Belt |
Light | |||
![]() Legs |
Light | |||
![]() Boots |
Light | |||
![]() Necklace |
Jewelry | |||
![]() Ring |
Jewelry | |||
![]() Ring |
Jewelry | |||
![]() Frontbar Main Hand |
Lightning Staff |
This setup parses 112.8k DPS
ADDITIONAL INFO:
Noble Duelist replaces
Infallible Mage
This is a setup you should use if you don't have access to
Rakkhat’s Voidmantle Mythic
| Gear Slot | Set | Weight/Type | Trait | Enchantment |
|---|---|---|---|---|
![]() Head |
Light | |||
![]() Shoulders |
Medium | |||
![]() Chest |
Light | |||
![]() Hands |
Light | |||
![]() Belt |
Light | |||
![]() Legs |
Light | |||
![]() Boots |
Light | |||
![]() Necklace |
Jewelry | |||
![]() Ring |
Jewelry | |||
![]() Ring |
Jewelry | |||
![]() Frontbar Main Hand |
Lightning Staff |
This setup parses 107.4k DPS
ADDITIONAL INFO:
Anthelmir’s Construct replaces
Rakkhat’s Voidmantle and
Slimecraw
The best setup for Single Target damage
| Gear Slot | Set | Weight/Type | Trait | Enchantment |
|---|---|---|---|---|
![]() Head |
Light | |||
![]() Shoulders |
Medium | |||
![]() Chest |
Medium | |||
![]() Hands |
Medium | |||
![]() Belt |
Medium | |||
![]() Legs |
Medium | |||
![]() Boots |
Medium | |||
![]() Necklace |
Jewelry | |||
![]() Ring |
Jewelry | |||
![]() Ring |
Jewelry | |||
![]() Frontbar Main Hand |
Lightning Staff |
This setup parsed 124.9k. Keep in mind you have to make sure your supports are providing enough penetration if you want to use this setup, because
Slivers of Null Arca is a Medium Armor set.
ADDITIONAL INFO:
Slivers of Null Arca replaces
Infallible Mage
CHAMPION POINTS
Warfare
Weapons Expert (20% Light and Heavy Attack Damage)
Deadly Aim (6% Single Target Damage)
Wrathful-Strikes (205 Weapon and Spell Damage)
Master-at-Arms (6% Direct Damage)
Fitness
Boundless Vitality (1400 Max Health)
Fortified (1731 armor)
Celerity (10% Movement Speed)
Rejuvenation (90 Health, Stamina and Magicka Recovery)
ADDITIONAL INFO:
- Replace
Master-at-Arms with
Fighting Finesse if you aren't at the Critical Damage cap, for example because you're using Light Armor or because your supports aren't providing enough buffs
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.
Best race for 12-man content - High Elf, Dark Elf
Best race for 4-man content - Khajiit
Other decent options: Orc, Breton
MUNDUS
ATTRIBUTES
HEALTH
0
STAMINA
0
MAGICKA
64
You should always put all 64 attribute points into Magicka
FOOD
Artaeum Pickled Fish Bowl - Max Health, Max Magicka. Use it for most of regular content.
Solitude Salmon-Millet Soup is a cheaper alternative
Tomato Garlic Chutney - Max Magicka. Use it for practice dummy parsing
POTIONS
Use the Spell Power potions (Increase Spell Power, Spell Critical, Restore Magicka). They'll provide Major Sorcery and Major Prophecy which are crucial buffs. You can craft them by combining
Lady's Smock,
Namira's Rot and
Corn Flower.
PARSE
Combat Metrics screenshot of the 125k parse
Recording of the 125k parse
OTHER PARSES
Infallible Aether - 114.7k DPS
GAMEPLAY
Logs of Veteran Trials I've finished using this build
Veteran Aetherian Archive - https://www.esologs.com/reports/gM1wyxHjZ7cL4Btv
Veteran Kyne's Aegis - https://www.esologs.com/reports/dRn8VjG4q2htY1Lm
THANKS FOR READING
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