Help a new player with build/class decisions.

ÆGiS

Hi,
I just picked up the game on the steam sale and was wondering what race/ weapons and builds would be good for a DK? I guess I would like my character to be mostly DPS and tanky, can DK's even do both in this game?

Any help is appreciated, Happy Thanksgiving.

leeux

Hey there @ÆGiS

I'm not the best person to give advise about DKs, since I parked mine at L40 and he has been almost three months on the Alik'r bank So keep that in mind until someone more knowledgeable comes...

I'd say to you that the race has not much bearing in the char's capabilities.

Some races have nicer passives for magicka builds and others for stamina builds, but that's all. But many of those passives give minimum advantages, and you'd only notice the difference if you're into min/maxing and getting the most of your build. (If that's the case, you'd need to do some research before starting then)

All I write here is from the perstective of a casual/normal player that read about builds and learnt a few combinations that were in use at some point


For example:
* For magicka based DKs, many pick Dunmer (Fire Damage bonus passive) since DKs have a lot of fire based attacks, and chose Inferno staff as weapon to increase that synergy.
These are normally more leaning to the DPS side than tanks, but you can always perform good as tank as long as you have a big health pool, and enough Stamina and Stamina Regen to sustain the task.
You can also pick another Mage-y race (Altmer or Breton) and be on par with the above minus the extra Fire bonus.
For DPSing magicka based builds tend to use Light Armor mostly, because its passives.

* For Stamina based, many chose Redguard or Imperials, they have nice passives for that. And then go the 2H route (good DPS) and Bow (also good DPS)
In this case, Medium Armor is the favorite one since it has passives that increase weapon power and stamina abilities' cost overall.

For tanking, if you're interested in running dungeons as a dedicated tank, you'll have to be using Sword and Shield for it's block cost reduction and damage mitigation passives. You wouldn't be able to sustain the damage done to you by some bosses in veteran dungeons if you aren't using S&B. While leveling, it doesn't matters as much, but even then... read below about the taunt...

Also, S&B has the first available taunt in game (stamina based,) and the only one you can use until you unlock the Inner Fire (magicka based and ranged) skill from the Undaunted skill line... but you have to reach Rank 3 in undaunted first, and for that you need to run group dungeons and gain achievements while in them.

So, TL;DR: For tanking -> Sword & Shield and all health, need good stamina , and an average/reasonable magicka pool. Heavy Armor/medium armor hybrid mostly.

For DPS, you have more choices, the best known are: using Magicka build with Staves using Light Armor, or a Stamina build with 2H and Bow using Medium Armor. Don't know anything about Dual Wield builds, sadly.

TamrielFoundry is a good site for researching builds.

Also, if you need info about skills and passives, ESOHEAD has a skill calculator.

This is a part of the forums that has a lot less traffic... I hope you get more responses

Best wishes, and good luck with the game!
~Leeux.

Gyudan

I wanted to provide feedback but leeux already covered everything, so follow his advice!

leeux

Hey @Gyudan Thanks for the compliment!

I'm sure I left out a lot of stuff! Keep in mind that I'm not maxed out on my DK class skill lines, so I don't know a lot about the their higher level skills

ÆGiS

Thank you so much, this is really going to help me. If anyone else has anything to share please do. @leeux

Thudunblundur

Despite the limitations of class skills, you really can play it your way to a very great extent, and there's going to be a big overhaul of all classes and skills in update 6 I gather and they are constantly tweaking anyway...

What I'm saying is any advice given is likely to be overtaken by events. I'd honestly pick whatever YOU like the look of because we really don't know what the min/max situation will be in two months time. You've already picked a very powerful class in the DK and you can definitely tank and dps. Have fun!:)