Question for Dragon Knights regarding leveling

steven.flemingub17_ESO · May 2014

I'm leveling my new DK alt (lvl 22 atm). I am using a standard 2hand sword\med armor\high stam build, which has been a fun and solid leveling build so far. The single target dps is strong so 1v1 or 2v1 never pose an issue. Only a couple times have I died in 3v1's or greater. I've noticed however that the 3v1's are starting to get a little more difficult and likely to get more difficult as the mobs get stronger.

I've read that 2h stam builds do not scale well, and at higher levels are ditched for majicka aoe builds that deal with the 3v1\4v1 encounters better. Some popular builds I've seen focus on majicka\heavy and light armor using destro staff, particularly utilizing destro staff pulse. Another option is sword and board and super high health to wear down mobs in those 3v1\4v1 situations.

I'm wondering how long I should stay with putting points into stam and 2h and med armor, before focusing on an aoe majicka build? Is 2h\stam really not viable for 3v1 and more at higher levels? Should I stay with 2nd until V1 and then reset everything? Should I reset everything earlier, say 30 or so?

Appreciate any advice.

Armitas · May 2014

I'm V9 doing fine using a 2hander with 3 man pulls. What makes a 3 man pull hard is the fact that you have 3 heavy attacks that need to be blocked but at the same time you can't do any damage because you have to block so much.

Part of the reason the magica AOE builds work well is because you can block while casting them. (not sure if working as intended).

The trick for melee is to use volcanic rune. It will knock all 3 mobs to the ground so you can burst one down, then drop it again and burst the next one. This way you will only be dealing with 1 opponent at a time. Volcanic rune does some ok damage as well and can even apply the burning effect.

At some point though I would still learn light armor and destruction staff so you have it available.

steven.flemingub17_ESO · May 2014

Awesome thanks for the advice. I have been using Dragon Leap as my ultimate so far and it also throws them into the air and the ultimate itself seems to be up very, very often (with the short cost morph especially). Seems like it would be a great combo to open with DL aoe and toss them, drop a rune so they get aoe and tossed again, and then 2h down the rest. Not sure though if I should add Dark Talons as another aoe, might be completely depleted of majicka at the end of all that which would create down time.

Anyway, it's great to know 2h is still viable at higher levels as I love the 2h play style.

ConquerorDromtar · May 2014

That's a good question and is one I dealt with myself at about your level. I've found the real strength of the DK to be in their ability to control the fight and use DoTs. I went heavy on the stamina and health at first but eventually had to start dumping points into magicka to be able to use the class skills needed for survivability and handling the increasing number of group pulls. Speaking solely from personal experience, at this point you're better off starting to put 50-75% of your attribute points into magicka and upping your Ardent Flame skills. DoTs and Cleave work wonders on packs and Dark Talons is an awesome opener for the snare and DoT.

At level 46 I'm currently looking at something like 19/18/9 whereas at 22 I was closer to 5/10/7. As long as I've got the magicka, Dragon Blood helps regen a lot of stamina, as does the passive that regens a % of any ultimate I use. Both of those help a lot with resource recovery.