This is a guide to healing dungeons with a Dragonknight. This build works great for all types of dungeons, including the HM DLC dungeons. It works fine for normal trials. I have not tried it in a vet trial so I won’t make any claims about its viability there, but I suspect it would do fine if the group is willing to work with it (most won’t be).
The Dragonknight is not a Templar, but this does not prevent it from being an effective healer. Healers in ESO provide both healing and support, and most of the skills they use are available to all classes:
Healing: the most important skills for end-game healing are Healing Springs and Combat Prayer, both of which are available to all classes.
Magicka management: this comes from Elemental Drain (Destro Staff) and Necrotic Orb (Undaunted), both of which are available to all classes.
Damage buffs: this comes primarily from sets and therefore is the same for any class. As a DK, we have a few extra ways to buff damage not available to other classes.
Templars are uniquely capable of supporting the group’s stamina management. As a DK, we can compensate a little bit with specific gear sets, but our stamina support will always be inferior to a Templar’s. However, defining “support” as “stamina management” is very narrow-minded; Dragonknights can offer support in other ways that Templars cannot. In certain situations one or the other is preferable, but overall neither class is better or worse than the other, they’re just different.
What types of support can the Dragonknight provide? You have access to the same set of skills that make Dragonknight tanks so popular:
- Chains to pull enemies so they can be damaged with AoE
- Igneous Shields to provide provide shields to your group
- Igneous Weapons to provided Major Sorcery and Major Brutality to the group, increasing their damage
- Engulfing Flames to increase fire damage done to an enemy
- Choking Talons to immobilize enemies and inflict Minor Maim, reducing damage done
- Deep Breath to AoE interrupt
This is extremely useful in groups with a non-DK tank, because you can provide traditional “tanking” abilities while the tank takes advantage to the unique strengths of their chosen class. You remain useful even if the tank is a stam DK, because you have a lot more magicka than they do and therefore can use the abilities much more often.
Gear
Use 1 Restoration Staff, 1 Destruction Staff. Each element Destruction Staff has different advantages:
- Fire: works well with the increased fire damage inherent to a DK (for easier fights where you have time to do damage as well as heal).
- Lightning: can be used to concuss enemies, applying Minor Vulnerability.
- Ice: let’s you be a true off-tank. If the tank goes down, heavy attack to taunt the boss. Yes, I’ve done this. It’s pretty fun.
Healer gear sets are mostly the same regardless of class. The important 5-piece healing sets are:
- Spell Cure Power: when you heal an ally at 100% health, they get a damage buff. Once you get a full set you should never take it off.
- Kagrenac’s Hope: the best crafted set for healers, and the best set when you’re just starting out as a healer. It provides solid bonuses useful to healers and decreases resurrection time by 25%, decreasing the time you won’t be healing if you have to res someone.
- Worm’s Raiment: reduces magicka costs by 5% for the whole group; this helps immensely with magicka sustain.
- Infallible Aether: medium or heavy attacks apply Minor Vulnerability on an enemy, increasing their damage taken by 8%. In Homestead this was made partially redundant because Minor Vulnerability is also applied by the Concussed status effect that comes from lightning damage. However, in a 4-person dungeon you’re unlikely to have high concussed uptime and so IA remains very useful.
- Sanctuary, Twilight Remedy, and Healing Mage are all becoming more popular since Homestead; I haven’t done much with them but any seem like fine choices.
Additionally, DK healers should consider the Sentinel of Rkugamz monster set. This set summons a Dwarven Spider that restores health and stamina to allies within its radius. It is one of your only ways to restore ally’s stamina (the other is the Master’s Resto Staff from vDSA but that is much harder to obtain). I find that most of the time the Sentinel of Rkugamz isn’t needed, but I recommend having one in your inventory in case you need it. The one-piece bonus increases your healing done, and therefore is useful if you have a single extra slot.
Other than the monster set, it doesn’t matter which sets are in which slots. There are a few different combinations possible depending on whether or not you have weapons from a set:
- 5-5-1 (e.g. SPC, IA, 1-piece Sentinel; requires set weapons)
- 5-5-0 (e.g. SPC, IA; does not require set weapons; if you have a master’s resto staff you would use this)
- 5-4-2 (e.g. SPC, 4 piece IA, 2-piece Sentinel; requires set weapons)
- 5-3-2 (e.g. SPC, 3 piece IA, 2-piece Sentinel; does not require set weapons).
Most of the time I use 5-piece SPC, 5-piece IA and 1-piece Sentinel, but switch out an IA piece for the second Sentinel piece if I need the monster set. I could replace IA with any of the other 5-piece sets listed above without impacting my ability to be useful.
Stats
DPS are obsessed with having the perfect stat pool, because all other things being equally, more DPS is good. Healers don’t have to worry about that. There is no benefit to overhealing, so as long as you can get an ally to full health, the magnitude of the heal is not important. Therefore, you don’t have to be as picky about your stats.
The priorities for a healer are, in order:
- don’t be dead (healing done is 0)
- don’t be out of magicka (healing done is whatever a restoration staff heavy attack does)
- have a decent magicka to increase the magnitude of your heals
Thus, your stat priorities are:
- Health (aim for 19K or so; higher health makes you less likely to be dead and buffs Igneous Shields)
- Magicka Regen
- Max Magicka
Food: Use blue Health + Magicka food, or purple Health + Magicka + Magicka Regen food.
Mundus Stone: Atronach, for magicka regen
Race: Any race will work fine, with an edge going to Magicka races. Breton is probably the best choice for a pure healer, but the difference between the races is fairly small. My character is an Altmer.
Champion Points:
This is not a scientific, data-proven distribution, but a solid setup is:
- Mage: Blessed – 100, Elfborn – 56, Elemental Expert – 44
- Warrior: Bastion – 32, Hardy – 82, Elemental Defender – 76, Thick Skinned – 10
- Thief: Magician – 100, Arcanist – 100
For reference, here is my character sheet. This is NOT an optimal setup – my gear is not perfect, and my CP are a bit different from above because I also tank on this character.

Skills
My default bar setup is the following:

Restoration Staff bar:
- Healing Springs (Restoration Staff): applies a 3-second HoT to all allies within its large radius. These stack with themselves so this ability is spammable. This is your bread-and-butter heal; if you don’t know what else to do, spam Healing Springs and things won’t die.
- Combat Prayer (Restoration Staff): this is a burst heal to allies in front of you that also applies Minor Berserk (increased damage done) and Minor Resolve and Ward (increased resistances). Heals, buffs damage, and buffs resistances. You want to try to use this at least once every 8 seconds to keep the buffs active for the damage increase to the group (you may need to cast it multiple times if the group is positioned all over the place). Like Healing Springs, it is also a good choice for spamming.
- Rapid Regen (Restoration Staff): applies a strong heal-over-time to 2 allies. With Homestead, this ability is no longer stupid – it now favors allies who don’t already have the HoT. Therefore, cast it twice to put it on the group and then reapply when it runs out. In easier content, this is usually all that’s required to keep allies alive.
- Healing Ward (Restoration Staff): this is your single target burst heal. It heals a small amount and applies a damage shield for a few seconds that heals when it disappears. If someone’s health is dropping too fast for a HoT to save them (or if you can’t find them), cast this.
- Igneous Shields (Earthen Heart): This has several different effects, all of which are useful. It provides a damage shield to you. Therefore, you are much less likely to die. It provides a damage shield to your group. The shield scales off of health and therefore isn’t super powerful, but it can be enough to help a DPS survive what would otherwise be a one-shot (particularly if they’re a bit low on health). Note that this buff has a fairly small range so you’ll want to stand closer to the rest of the group than you normally would as a healer. It provides Major Mending, increasing your healing done by 25%. Pretty staightforwardly useful. Try to cast this ability once every 6 seconds to keep Major Mending up (although obviously not at the expense of letting a group member die). It gives you ultimate when you cast it (6 second cooldown). This is another reason to cast the ability every six seconds
- Aggressive Warhorn (Assault): this increases everyone’s stats by 10% and grants Major Force, giving a massive increase to critical damage for about 10 seconds. This is an enormous damage buff to the group so if you don’t need your ultimates to help keep the group alive, use this to increase DPS. Remember that as a DK you regen resources when you use your ultimate, so you want to use this as often as possible.
Destruction staff bar:
- Unrelenting Grip: the Dragonknight’s famous “chains” ability, this pulls an enemy to your location. Most DPS builds include AoE damage, and therefore the group’s damage goes up if all the enemies are standing on top of each other. This ability is great when there are lots of adds, useless when there are no adds.
- Choking Talons (Draconic Power): immobilizes and applies Minor Maim to enemies, reducing their damage done. The immobilization effect prevents enemies that have been chained from running away and stops melee enemies from chasing after ranged DPS. Minor Maim means less damage going out, meaning less damage you have to heal. The tank will usually apply this to the boss, but it is super helpful to cast it periodically in trash fights.
- Elemental Drain (Destruction Staff): debuff that applies Major Breach (decreases spell resistances) and Minor Magickasteal (restores magicka when hit) to an enemy. If you have magicka DPS, try to keep this on the boss as much as you can. If you don’t have any magicka DPS, this is useless.
- Energy Orb (Undaunted): this releases an orb that damages enemies and provides a synergy. If an ally activates the synergy they restore magicka instantly and restore a small amount of magicka over time for a few seconds. This ability helps your group’s magicka sustain will also contributing a bit of damage. The other morph heals allies instead of damaging enemies, but does not restore a burst of magicka when activated (only the restoration over time). I find that I don’t need the extra healing so I favor the damage morph.
- Crushing Shock (Destruction Staff): this is a ranged spammable that also interrupts casting enemies. Use this if you have time to contribute some DPS, or your group needs help interrupting enemies.
- Reviving Barrier (Support): casts a large damage shield on the entire group, and restores ultimate when it goes away. If your group is struggling with a high-damage mechanic, this is great for providing extra wiggle room. The ultimate restoration means you can cast it more often, which means more resources (for you) and more shields (for your group).
Note that there is a lot of flexibility in what goes on the destruction staff bar. You have a lot of choices for supporting your allies, and different situations and groups call for different things. Abilities that are extremely useful in some situations may be useless in others. Here are a number of abilities to consider:
- Deep Breath (Draconic Power): AoE interrupt with some damage and self-heal. If you have a bunch of enemies stacked on top of each other, it can be difficult to target the right one to bash them. This solves that problem by interrupting all of them.
- Cauterize (Ardent Flame) : this is a single-target burst heal that fires again automatically every five seconds for 15 seconds. I prefer Healing Ward as my single target heal, but that can only be on your restoration staff bar. If you feel the need for a burst heal on your backbar, this is a good choice. Beware that this ability cannot target you, so it cannot be used to save yourself.
- Elemental Blockade (Destruction Staff): if you use a lighting staff and do not have IA, you can use this to Concuss enemies and apply Minor Vulnerability. Plus, it helps with damage (and gets buffed by DK passives you use a fire staff)
- Eruption/Cinder Storm (Earthen Heart): does damage and slows enemies. The slow is helpful for crowd control, but you’d mainly use this in easier fights where you have an occasional chance to contribute some damage.
- Engulfing Flames (Ardent Flame): enemies affected by this ability take extra damage from fire. If you have DPS who use a lot of fire but aren’t DKs themselves this is a helpful damage buff.
- Igneous Weapons (Earthen Heart): applies Major Sorcery and Major Brutality to allies, increasing their spell and weapon damage by 20%. If your DPS do not already have these buffs (in dungeons, many will not), this is a nice damage increase.
- Efficient Purge (Support): since you lack the Templar’s built-in purge synergy, this is a good way to remove negative effects from your drop. This is not necessary in most cases (they’re either easy to heal through or not purgeable) but useful in others
Ultimates:
- Magma Shell (Earthen Heart): casts a damage shield on the group and limits incoming damage to you to 3% per hit. The shield is not as strong as Barrier’s and doesn’t last as long, but this makes a good alternative if you don’t have barrier. The limit on incoming damage is great if a fight goes south and you need to res the group – pop Magma Armor and let the boss wail on you while you get the tank back up.
- Elemental Rage (Destruction Staff): if you don’t have Warhorn, this a good way to contribute to the group’s damage. If you use a fire staff this will be buffed by the DK passive.
- Shooting Star (Mage’s Guild): Likewise, this is another good way to contribute to the group’s damage if you don’t have Warhorn.
How To Play
This section is a bit difficult to write because every fight and group is different, but I think it’s important to say something about how to play beyond just listing stats and skills.
Assume a standard fight with about 7-8 enemies. One is the “boss” – maybe an actual boss, or maybe just the biggest normal enemy. The tank will likely taunt the boss and hold them in the center of the area. Here’s how I’d heal:
- Before the group engages, I cast Rapid Regen so the entire group has it at the start of the fight, and cast Igneous Shield for a group shield and Major Mending for myself.
- The tank engages. The DPS should stay close to them. I cast a Combat Prayer to give them Minor Berserk, then stand on top of them and cast Healing Springs at our feet.
- Between the Healing Springs and the HoT from Rapid Regen, I’ve done all the healing I need to for the moment. It’s time to switch to support.
- I barswap to my backbar and cast Elemental Drain on the boss to help the DPS sustain.
- I then chain a few of the ranged enemies in so they’re on top of the tank and I. I cast Choking Talons to hold them in place and inflict Minor Maim.
- Depending on how much damage the group is taking, I either barswap and cast Igneous + Combat Prayer + Healing Springs again, or I keep chaining.
- If the fight drags on for a while, I will step back and toss a few Energy Orbs at the group to restore magicka.
- In practice, of course, no fight has ever occurred exactly like that, but hopefully this shows the general style of gameplay.