Magicka Dragonknight Solo Build - ESO Guide
Magicka Dragonknight (MagDK) Solo Build for ESO, carried by
Soul of Flame, a reworked Deep Breath that restores resources based on your missing resources. It's completely broken and lets you use armor potions and Medium armor with absolutely no sustain issues.
Both Stamina and Magicka Dragonknight use Soul of Flame, but Magicka Dragonknight has an easier time keeping it up since the skill costs Magicka. It's the strongest solo build in ESO Update 49.
Capable of soloing every Veteran dungeon that doesn't have a mechanic requiring multiple people, including Veteran Hard Mode Fang Lair and Veteran Hard Mode Scalecaller Peak. Also cleared Normal Trials and Night Market bosses solo. Parses 72.9k in the most offensive setup, and only drops to 66.6k in a defensive setup that hits the 33k armor cap.
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: Molten Whip | Slot 1: Shatterspike Mantle |
| Slot 2: Searing Claw | Slot 2: Incinerate |
| Slot 3: Disintegrating Dragonfire | Slot 3: Elemental Susceptibility |
| Slot 4: Soul of Flame | Slot 4: Elemental Blockade |
| Slot 5: Ulfsild's Contingency | Slot 5: Igneous Weapons |
| Ultimate: Take Flight | Ultimate: Standard of Might |
Molten Whip - a spammable which grants you a stack of Seething Fury whenever you use another Dragonknight ability. Seething Fury lasts 10 seconds, increases your damage done by 5% and increases damage of your next
Molten Whip by 33% per stack, stacking up to 3 times. The damage done buff does not disappear when you use the empowered whip.
Searing Claw - deals direct damage and applies a 10 second DoT which deals 10% more damage every 2 seconds. The initial hit is guaranteed to proc Burning status effect.
Disintegrating Dragonfire - deals direct damage in a cone in front of you and applies a 10 second DoT to all enemies hit and debuffs them with Major Breach, reducing their armor by 5948
Soul of Flame - interrupts enemies around you, restores 15% missing Stamina and Magicka every 2 seconds over 4 seconds (ticks 3 times) and deals damage in an AoE at the end
Ulfsild's Contingency (
Flame,
Lingering Torment,
Resolve) - a 22 second DoT which will also grant you Minor Resolve, increasing your armor by 2974. Having it slotted will also increase your Max Magicka and Magicka Recovery through
Magicka Controller passive. This is also your AoE spammable
Take Flight - a cheap ultimate which deals damage, stuns enemies and grants you a 20% Damage Done against Monsters buff for 15 seconds
Shatterspike Mantle - your source of Major Resolve which also applies a 20 second DoT to enemies around you and grants you a buff which adds 100 damage to all of your damage ticks
Incinerate - an ability which releases a fiery wave around you on cast and then every 5 seconds for 15 seconds. It has increased base chance to proc Burning status effect. Having it slotted passively grants you Major Savagery and Prophecy.
Elemental Susceptibility - an extremely loaded ability that does a multitude of things. It's completely free to cast so it'll help you sustain. It applies Major Breach, which reduces enemies' armor by 5948 which is a massive damage increase. It also applies Burning, Chilled and Concussed status effects at the beginning and then every 7.5 seconds. All of these Status Effects deal decent damage, but Concussed will also apply Minor Vulnerability for 4 seconds, increasing enemies' damage taken by 5%. Chilled will also apply Minor Maim for 4 seconds, reducing enemies' damage done by 5% and it will also apply Minor Brittle for 4 seconds if you were on your Ice Staff bar while the Chilled effect procced, and Ice Staff will be part of the Instanced gear setup. Minor Brittle increase Critical Damage taken by 10%. The Chilled proc will also synergise with our
Elemental Blockade
Elemental Blockade - this ability will constantly apply your
Weapon Damage enchantment. If it's the Ice version, it will also constantly apply Minor Breach to enemies who are Chilled, and they'll be Chilled thanks to
Elemental Susceptibility
Igneous Weapons - a 60 second buff which grants you Major Brutality and Sorcery and causes your Light Attacks to deal additional damage up to once every 2 seconds.
Standard of Might - an ultimate which calls down a standard which increases your Weapon and Spell Damage by 600, increases your damage done by 15% and reduces your damage taken by 25%. It's always a DPS decrease compared to
Take Flight, but it can be used to survive difficult mechanics thanks to the 25% damage reduction
Ulfsild's Contingency is the first skill that has to go if you need to slot something situational, unless the situational skill specifically says it's replacing something else. If it's a difficult fight where you need all the mitigation you can get, then the skill that has to go is
Disintegrating Dragonfire, or
Searing Claw if you need a lot of AoE damage for that fight.
Resolving Vigor - use it for fights where there's a lot of damage happening in a short burst. The HoT from
Resolving Vigor is short but very strong, so casting it at the right time can help you survive such mechanics. It can also be used in fights with invulnerability phases where you can't heal with
Ring of the Pale Order or
Reaving Blows
Burning Talons - a replacement for
Ulfsild's Contingency which does more damage but doesn't provide the armor buff, and just like
Ulfsild, it can be used as AoE spammable
Chains of Dominance - a chain ability that you can use to stack enemies. Use it in trash packs or in boss fights with adds that have to be chained. It also applies Major Cowardice which can be useful against hard hitting bosses. It isn't worth slotting just for the Major Cowardice alone, but if you already slotted it to deal with the adds you might as well use it on the boss
Chains of Devastation - a gap closer which can be useful in fights where you have to move around a lot
Soul Burst (
Pull,
Class Mastery,
Breach) - an 8 meter AoE pull with a 2 second delay which will debuff your enemies with Minor Breach and grant you Weapon and Spell Damage based on number of enemies hit
Ulfsild's Contingency (
Flame,
Gladiator's Tenacity,
Resolve) - a different script combination which trades the DoT from
Lingering Torment for the mitigation from
Gladiator's Tenacity. Use it in fights where you need more damage mitigation.
Revealing Flare - slot it for more difficult fights where you need more damage mitigation. It's a skill that passively grants Major Protection, reducing your damage taken by 10%. It will also trigger the
Magicka Aid passive, which increases Magicka Recovery by 10%
Quick Cloak - an ability which provides Major Evasion, which reduces your AoE damage taken by 20%. Use it in fights with lots of AoE damage.
Burning Embers - the other morph of
Searing Claw which doesn't deal more damage with time, but instead heals you on cast and every time the DoT ticks. Use it if you need more healing.
Protect the Brood - an extremely situational ability which can be useful in fights with lots of projectile damage. It also provides Minor Protection for 20 seconds after casting
Fleetstep Wings - the other morph of
Protect the Brood which should be used in fights where you need to remove snares
Precognition - an ultimate that breaks you out of some otherwise unavoidable stuns, you'll need it to get around some mechanics which are otherwise impossible or very difficult to solo, like for example Inferno's Hold in Zaan the Scalecaller fight
Corrosive Armor - an ultimate that limits any damage you take to 6% of your max HP for 10 seconds, useful in fights with infrequent hard hitting mechanics
Volcanic Ward - a decent damage shield which also reduce the next instance of damage you take by 10% and heals you after the shield ends. It has a similar use case to
Resolving Vigor, but it costs Magicka instead of Stamina, and damage shields will perform better than healing in some fights, where you need to prepare for a bigger hit
Priority List
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
- 1.
Elemental Susceptibility - 2.
Igneous Weapons - 3.
Elemental Blockade - 4.
Molten Whip if it's at 3 stacks - 5.
Take Flight - 6.
Incinerate - 7.
Shatterspike Mantle - 8.
Searing Claw - 9.
Disintegrating Dragonfire - 10.
Ulfsild's Contingency - 11.
Soul of Flame - 12.
Molten Whip
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 for trash packs
| Front Bar | Back Bar |
|---|---|
| Slot 1: Molten Whip | Slot 1: Shatterspike Mantle |
| Slot 2: Chains of Dominance | Slot 2: Incinerate |
| Slot 3: Disintegrating Dragonfire | Slot 3: Soul Burst |
| Slot 4: Soul of Flame | Slot 4: Elemental Blockade |
| Slot 5: Ulfsild's Contingency | Slot 5: Igneous Weapons |
| Ultimate: Take Flight | Ultimate: Standard of Might |
What Changes
Chains of Dominance replaces
Searing Claw
Soul Burst replaces
Elemental Susceptibility
A setup which trades survivability for more damage
| Front Bar | Back Bar |
|---|---|
| Slot 1: Molten Whip | Slot 1: Shatterspike Mantle |
| Slot 2: Searing Claw | Slot 2: Incinerate |
| Slot 3: Disintegrating Dragonfire | Slot 3: Elemental Susceptibility |
| Slot 4: Soul of Flame | Slot 4: Elemental Blockade |
| Slot 5: Burning Talons | Slot 5: Igneous Weapons |
| Ultimate: Take Flight | Ultimate: Standard of Might |
What Changes
Burning Talons replaces
Ulfsild's Contingency
A setup which trades damage for more survivability. Use it against harder boss fights or if you simply want a tankier build and don't mind fights taking longer
| Front Bar | Back Bar |
|---|---|
| Slot 1: Molten Whip | Slot 1: Shatterspike Mantle |
| Slot 2: Searing Claw | Slot 2: Incinerate |
| Slot 3: Revealing Flare | Slot 3: Elemental Susceptibility |
| Slot 4: Soul of Flame | Slot 4: Elemental Blockade |
| Slot 5: Ulfsild's Contingency | Slot 5: Igneous Weapons |
| Ultimate: Take Flight | Ultimate: Standard of Might |
What Changes
Revealing Flare replaces
Disintegrating Dragonfire
Passives
The only passive you specifically have to skip is
Tri Focus, but it's only important when using an Ice Staff
Some trees are only needed when using situational skills, for example Psijic Order provides nothing without
Precognition
Class - Ardent Flame
Combustion - High Priority
Traumatic Burns - High Priority
Fan the Flames - High Priority
A Soul Ablaze - High Priority
Class - Draconic Power
Burnished Scales - High Priority
World in Ruin - High Priority
Elder Dragon - High Priority
The Storm Voice - High Priority
Class - Earthen Heart
Heart of Stone - High Priority
Landslide - High Priority
Blessing at the Peak - High Priority
Mountain Giant - High Priority
Weapon - Dual Wield
Slaughter - High Priority
Dual Wield Expert - High Priority
Controlled Fury - High Priority
Ruffian - Medium Priority
Twin Blade and Blunt - High Priority
Weapon - Destruction Staff
Tri Focus - Do Not Unlock (only when using Ice Staff)
Penetrating Magic - Low Priority
Elemental Force - Medium Priority
Ancient Knowledge - Medium Priority
Destruction Expert - Low Priority
Armor - Light Armor
Grace - Low Priority
Evocation - High Priority
Spell Warding - High Priority
Prodigy - High Priority
Concentration - High Priority
Armor - Medium Armor
Dexterity - High Priority
Wind Walker - High Priority
Improved Sneak - Not needed
Agility - High Priority
Athletics - High Priority
Guild - Mages Guild
Persuasive Will - Not needed
Mage Adept - High Priority
Everlasting Magic - High Priority
Magicka Controller - High Priority
Might of the Guild - Low Priority
Guild - Psijic Order
Clairvoyance - Low Priority
Spell Orb - Not needed
Concentrated Barrier - Low Priority
Deliberation - Not needed
Alliance War - Support
Magicka Aid - Medium Priority
Combat Medic - Not needed
Battle Resurrection - Not needed
Race - Your Race
Get all of your racials, no matter which race you are
Craft - Alchemy
Solvent Proficiency - Not needed
Keen Eye: Reagents - Not needed
Medicinal Use - High Priority
Chemistry - Not needed
Laboratory Use - Not needed
Snakeblood - Not needed
Gear
Base Setup
A base setup that is meant for Overland content and will work for most situations. It 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
| Gear Slot | Set | Weight/Type | Trait | Enchantment |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Head |
Medium | |||
Shoulders |
Medium | |||
Chest |
Medium | |||
Hands |
Medium | |||
Belt |
Light | |||
Legs |
Medium | |||
Boots |
Medium | |||
Necklace |
Jewelry | |||
Ring |
Jewelry | |||
Ring |
Jewelry | |||
Frontbar Main Hand |
Dagger | |||
Frontbar Off Hand |
Dagger | |||
Backbar Main Hand |
Inferno Staff |
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
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
Only listing a single alternative because one of the sets from Base Setup,
Order's Wrath, is also a crafted set
No Overland, Dungeon or Trial gear is listed as the Crafted options are superior.
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 |
Medium | |||
Shoulders |
Medium | |||
Chest |
Medium | |||
Hands |
Medium | |||
Belt |
Light | |||
Legs |
Medium | |||
Boots |
Medium | |||
Necklace |
Jewelry | |||
Ring |
Jewelry | |||
Ring |
Jewelry | |||
Frontbar Main Hand |
Dagger | |||
Frontbar Off Hand |
Dagger | |||
Backbar Main Hand |
Inferno Staff |
The setup in the table uses only crafted gear, but if you already own parts of the Regular setup like
Ring of the Pale Order you can start using them immediately
This is a setup you should use in Instanced content (Arenas and Dungeons). Enemies in instanced content have 18,200 armor, while Overland enemies have only 9,100, so this setup will need much more penetration.
Medium Armor ends up dealing less damage than Light Armor in Instanced content since Light Armor provides penetration through
Concentration, but the difference is small (2%) and Medium Armor provides more armor, improves Stamina sustain, reduces Dodge Roll cost and doesn't increase your block cost the way Light Armor does through its
penalties.
| 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 |
Dagger | |||
Frontbar Off Hand |
Dagger | |||
Backbar Main Hand |
Ice Staff |
Explanation
Ansuul's Torment replaces
Order's Wrath, because in Instanced content you can benefit from the Minor Slayer buff, which makes it better- Inferno Staff is replaced with Ice Staff, because Ice
Elemental Blockade will improve uptime of the Minor Breach debuff
Additional Info
This is a setup you should use in Instanced content (Arenas and Dungeons). Enemies in instanced content have 18,200 armor, while Overland enemies have only 9,100, so this setup will need much more penetration.
Light Armor allows you to continue using
The Thief Mundus even in Instanced content, thanks to
Concentration passive. It ends up dealing more damage than the Medium Armor Instanced setup, but it has worse survivability.
| 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 |
Dagger | |||
Frontbar Off Hand |
Dagger | |||
Backbar Main Hand |
Ice Staff |
Explanation
Whorl of the Depths replaces
Order's Wrath, because in Instanced content you can benefit from the Minor Slayer buff, which makes it better- 1-piece
Slimecraw is replaced with 1-piece
Valkyn Skoria - Inferno Staff is replaced with Ice Staff, because Ice
Elemental Blockade will improve uptime of the Minor Breach debuff - Weight composition goes from 6 Medium 1 Light to 1 Medium 6 Light, so we can benefit a lot more from the
Concentration passive
Additional Info
- Changing Dagger to a Mace is the exact same trade-off as changing
Slimecraw to
Valkyn Skoria, due to the
Twin Blade and Blunt passive, so using
Slimecraw with 1 Mace would give the same result. Use whichever approach is more convenient for you depending on the gear you own.
Champion Points
Race
For solo PvE you need both damage and survivability, so every race brings something to the table, but these two stand out as the best options for damage and survivability respectively
Mundus
Attributes
For most content you should put all 64 points into Magicka. For difficult content you should devote as many attribute points as necessary to Health - for some content you'll be able to get away with 32 Health 32 Magicka, for the extremely difficult stuff you'll need 64 Health.
Food
Your sustain is completely trivialized by
Soul of Flame, so you don't need any recoveries from your food.
Potions
Your sustain is completely trivialized by
Soul of Flame,
so you don't need any recovery from your potions.
Use Armor Potions as your default.
Most of the time you should use Armor potions. They'll provide you with 5280 armor and you don't need sustain from your potions thanks to
Soul of Flame.
Heroism potions can provide 100% uptime on Minor Heroism, so they're the best option if going for pure damage, but it's a small DPS gain and a decent nerf to your survivability. On top of that, they're extremely expensive.
Parses
All parses are recorded on the 6 million Target Dummy
Patch: Update 49
Using Full DPS setup
Patch: Update 49
Food changed to Bewitched Sugar Skulls
Patch: Update 49
All previous changes + Armor Potions
Patch: Update 49
All previous changes + Regular Skill Setup
Patch: Update 49
All previous changes + Medium Armor
Patch: Update 49
All previous changes + 64 attribute points into Health
Patch: Update 49
Medium Armor setup (66.6k DPS) with Daggers changed to Inferno Staff
Patch: Update 49
Medium Armor setup (66.6k DPS) with Daggers changed to Lightning Staff
Patch: Update 49
Medium Armor setup (66.6k DPS) with Daggers changed to Greatsword
Gameplay
Here you can see this build tackling Veteran dungeons and other content
Fashion
| Slot | Style | Dyes |
|---|---|---|
| Head |
Thalmor Black
Thalmor Black
Legate's Black
|
|
| Shoulders |
Thalmor Black
|
|
| Chest |
Thalmor Black
Thalmor Black
Thalmor Black
|
|
| Hands |
Thalmor Black
Thalmor Black
Thalmor Black
|
|
| Belt |
Thalmor Black
|
|
| Legs |
Thalmor Black
Thalmor Black
Thalmor Black
|
|
| Feet |
Thalmor Black
Thalmor Black
Thalmor Black
|
|
| Frontbar Main Hand |
Thalmor Black
Legate's Black
Legate's Black
|
|
| Frontbar Off Hand |
Thalmor Black
Legate's Black
Legate's Black
|
|
| Backbar Main Hand |
Thalmor Black
Thalmor Black
Thalmor Black
|
|
| Slot | Collectible |
|---|---|
| Skin | |
| Personality |
FAQ
Yes, Magicka Dragonknight is the strongest solo build in ESO Update 49.
Soul of Flame makes sustain a non-issue, letting you run Medium armor and armor potions while still having resources to spare.
Every Veteran dungeon that doesn't have a mechanic requiring multiple people, including Veteran Hard Mode Fang Lair and Veteran Hard Mode Scalecaller Peak. Also Normal Trials and Night Market bosses solo.
Yes, you can replace the Dual Wield Daggers with other weapons. Inferno Staff, Lightning Staff, Greatsword and Bow will cause the smallest DPS loss (≈2%), and then support-oriented weapons (Ice Staff, One Handed and Shield) will cause a bigger DPS loss (≈7%). This build doesn't use any Dual Wield skills on the frontbar, so you won't need to change any skills when switching. This guide includes parses for Inferno Staff, Lightning Staff and Greatsword in the Parses section so you can see the exact numbers. Replacing the backbar weapon is a lot more troublesome, because
Elemental Susceptibility is an extremely powerful skill for solo.
No, you don't need a different setup. Use the base skills and one of the Instanced gear setups from this guide for both Maelstrom Arena and Vateshran Hollows.
THANKS FOR READING
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Head
Shoulders
Chest
Hands
Belt
Legs
Boots
Necklace
Ring
Frontbar Main Hand
Frontbar Off Hand