Improve or rebuild my Dragonknight?

Locriana · April 2017

I have an Altmer Dragonknight about to reach champion 160. She's not as good in dungeons as my Redguard Templar or my Dark Elf Sorcerer. I was going for a light, medium and heavy armor character each, for variety. Templar is heavy, Sorcerer is light. Dragonknight is medium. I'd like to keep her medium armor. She is dual wield on one bar and destruction staff on the other. I was told by some guy in a veteran dungeon that I shouldn't have a 'hybrid' character in the game. We weren't doing well, any of us. However, with exactly the same character and exactly the same veteran dungeon an hour before, with a different team we beat the boss rather well. Different team dynamics.
But I am wondering about what this guy said, as I have more difficulty with her in dungeons than the other two, who usually end up as healers. Dragonknight doesn't. I like shifting between dual wield and destruction staff as the situation warrants. But it is more difficult keeping her healed, unless we have a competent healer.
So, wondering what other experienced people think of this set up and how it can be maximized. I have all the medium armor skill points and am working up the High Elf points. What are the best Dragonknight skills to use with this combination of dual wield and destruction staff? With which skills on those lines? I keep trying different sets on the two weapon bars. It can go well, or not...mostly concerned with dungeons and trials, as the rest of the PVE is not so difficult. Don't want to be a drag on the dungeon teams.
Thanks for any thoughtful advice.

TheStealthDude · April 2017

Locriana wrote: »

Wow it looks like I did this all wrong on two of my three characters... My Dunmer is a sorceress and I love playing her, but she's split too between restoration staff and bow. With lght armor. Looks like I should've gone with res staff - des staff on her. And the bow, dual wield combo on the altmer. Though they are the wrong races for what they are doing. I also have my Dunmer as a super-crafter, so she has a lot of skill points in that (spends spare time looking for sky shards...) I usually go with res staff only in dungeons with her, and she does pretty well.
If I'm understanding you all, the attribute points you put into magic and stamina directly affect the amount of damage you can do per hit? Or is it just the obvious fact that you will run out your stamina or magic bar too quickly if it's lower? If the latter, then I just switch bars and I'm ok. I also recharge magicka with my res staff constantly with the Dunmer and use Twilight Matriarch on both bars as a source of healing the crew. If it's just using up the magicka, then not so bad. If the magicka attributes affect the damage of each hit directly, then I'm in trouble.
Thanks for all the information and I'd love to hear more. Don't have much to spend but I'll go for an attribute switch if necessary....but then I'd have to redo skill points as well....ugh... (There goes the Orsinium DLC I was saving for...). And of course I'd have to level the bow for the altmer and the destruction staff for the Dunmer...
All this leads me to wonder how this works when most class skills use magicka. My Templar is a swordsman, being a Redguard, heavy armor, but I've split my attributes between magic and stamina, considering he is usually hired as a healer and needs that magicka for healing spells. He works pretty well for both healing and damage, with food buffs.
Lots to consider, and I will be listening to all suggestions.
Thank you!

First of all, you can reset skill points (or just skill morphs), attribute points, and champion points in game for GOLD. You do not have to spend real life money to do that. You just need to go to a specific place in one of the Alliance capital cities (Mournhold, Stormhaven, or Grahtwood).

As far as how your stats interact with abilities, it might be best to use an example. Let's look at the Lava Whip skill (or its morphs) on your DK.

When you look at the tool tip for that skill, it says you will do X amount of flame damage to target. Let's say for this example that the tool tip damage is 4000 flame damage for you.

Lava Whip costs magicka to use, which means that 4000 damage is affected by a couple variables: Your Spell Damage and your Maximum Magicka. If you increase either of those stats, that 4000 flame damage will increase. As far as how much one stat raises that value vs the other, the general rule is that ~10 max magicka = 1 spell damage. So that tool tip damage should raise about the same amount if you increase your spell damage by 100 or if you increase your Max Magicka by 1000.

The other thing to consider is your weapon types. Destruction and Restoration staff light and heavy attacks are affected by Max magicka and spell damage, like your magicka abilities are. These staves also return magicka with heavy attacks.

Stamina-cost abilities and all the other weapons in the game work the same way as above, but off of Weapon damage and Maximum Stamina instead.

So you should be able to see that you are really limiting your potential by trying to get damage from both stamina-based AND magicka-based weapons compared to a character that specializes in either Stamina-based weapons OR magicka-based weapons.

However, the set I mentioned above helps bridge this gap a bit (see link).

http://elderscrollsonline.wiki.fextralife.com/Pelinal's+Aptitude+Set

As you can see from the link, this crafted set makes both your spell damage and weapon damage equal. This effect occurs AFTER all buffs and set bonuses are applied. Since we have established that spell/weapon damage is a variable in determining the power of your abilities, you should be able to see how this helps eliminate the problem (but not completely) of having to choose between stamina or magicka for maximum effectiveness.

There are some downsides to this set, though. 1) You have to use this set in your build to be effective as a hybrid and outside of the 5 piece bonus, the other bonuses aren't that great. 2) This doesn't increase your Spell or Weapon Critical Rating to match the other. Being a DK, though, gives you access to Flames of Oblivion, which gives both Major Prophecy AND Major Savagery (part of the reason DKs can do decent Hybrid builds). 3) This set doesn't add any Damage or Max Stats outside of the 5pc bonus. You really need that max magicka and stamina to do well as a hybrid.

Hopefully this gives you more insight into how to optimize your hybrid style!

TheStealthDude · April 2017

Locriana wrote: »

@theStealthDude What is a 5 pc crafted Pelinals set? I'm assuming you mean a set as is dropped in dungeons (I haven't seen that one), but how can 'sets' be crafted? Sorry, I'm not understanding you, and I'd like to.

There are certain item sets that can be crafted, instead of being found as loot. These crafted sets require you to have a specific number of traits researched for the items out want to craft for that set. Pelinals needs all 9 researched, unfortunately, for you to craft it yourself. However, if you ask for a 9-trait crafter in a populated zone, I bet you can find someone to craft you this set for a small fee.

AverageJo3Gam3r · April 2017

So here's what your friend was saying: abilities that cost stamina get stronger with higher weapon damage, higher stamina, and weapon critical chance. Abilities that cost magicka get stronger with higher spell damage, higher magicka, and spell critical chance. Thus, splitting your stats between these leads your abilities dealing half the damage you could be doing. Since you can only cast a skill about once a second, you'll be dealing half the amount of damage as someone who is full stamina or full magicka. In end game content (DLC dungeons, VMA, vet trials), this is a problem. In all other content, play as you want.

As a high elf, your class passives will be more suited to magicka. Right now the end game meta has shifted in favor of magicka anyways. Stamina dragonknights are strong too, probably the second best stamina class for end game PvE. So either choice is fine. Whatever you choose, search tamriel foundry for either stamina dragon knight or magicka dragon knight trial builds.

Dao_Jones · April 2017

A few suggestions off the top of my head:

1. "Hybrid" characters (splitting between magicka and stamina abilitied) do not tend to do well in ESO. You basically need to pick one: all stat points into magicka, or stamina. And use food buffs to buff out your attributes.

1a. Along that line, you should be picking skills that are either magicka or stamina based. Rather than break that statement down further, I would instead suggest you Google some builds, to get a general idea of how people are building Dragonknights. From there, maybe pick a build that sounds interesting, then customize it as appropriate to suit you.

2. Altmer are more suited to a magicka-based build. It's definitely not a deal-breaker, but you'll get a little more bang for your buck by building all magicka, and leveraging your Altmer racial bonuses. (And why are you "working on" your racials still? By level 50, you should have all of your racial passives maxed out.) If you want to play as Stamina, you can decide if its worth buying a racial change, or re-leveling a new character. (It's probably not, but if you want your bases covered for both magicka and stamina, consider picking Dunmer. They get both stamina and magicka bonuses, as well as fire damage bonuses.)

3. Medium armor is for stamina characters. If you are playing a magicka character you should be in light armor for PvE (or a mix of 5-1-1 light/heavy/medium, if you're running dungeons and have the Undaunted skill line leveled). Stamina characters are either in 5-1-1 (medium/light/heavy), or all 7 medium.

4. There's not a lot of reason to use dual wield on one bar, and destruction staff on the other. Again - if you're going full magicka, using two destro staves will give you more bang for your buck (as well as better buffs to your skills), and stamina characters don't use staves. As stamina, you'll be using DW on one bar, and either bow or 2H on your back bar for PvE.

Lefthy · April 2017

hi there,

I can give you some advices in the meantime for someone with more knowledge to come and help you.

Fisrt of all, the DPS hybrid build are sadly in a pretty awfull place, if you manage to make a solid dps on your stamina rotation you will suck on the magika one.

This is due a couple of things, fisrt how the resources pool work, you not share your crit chance on spell and stam damage, and of course you cant get a decent amount of weapon power whitout low on spell power (this you can fix it whit a set but the rest of the problems will remain)

So no, i would recomend you forget about going hybrid, at least till you get full CP and maybe zeni add more options for this builds.

So now you have to choose whit more do you feel more confortable. Since i dont play magika builds y can give you some tips on the stamina way.

First of all, the weapons:
The best dps weapons are dual wield, so i would go with that as first bar weapon to put the heavy damamge skills (you can go 2H too but its a little less dmg, it more of a pvp option)
Then i would suggest a bow to put some nice aoe skills there and some buffs.

Skills:
In the main bar i think you cant pass on poison claw + blood craze + bloodthrist (2 of this skills will heal you while you cast them so there you have a nice tool to keep you alive)
Then i would put some skill that gives you savagery (crit chance) you can put flames of oblivion or expert hunter
the last spot is a flexible one, so you can put something that suits you.

On the second bar i would go with bow becasue of endless hail + poison injection (one nice aoe and one nice excecute skill) that plus clatrops maybe can give you a nice aoe rotation.
then you can put maybe a heal like vigor and some other buff that suit you (rearming trap - igneous weapons - etc)

Armor: i would go crafted sets while you farm better options.
Night mother gaze + some piece of hundligs rage are a nice combo, add some agility jewrly from the guild vendor and you have a nice starting build.
(put stamina enchants on the most parts and try to use 5 pieces medium to get a damage buff)

The rotation would go whit the aoe first buff + endless hail + caltrops + trap + poison injection on boss and swap to melee to start hitting hard claws + blood craze + bloodthrist and go back again when endless hail ends.

Anyway, you can find nice hot top builds on pages like alcasthq, tamriel foundry or deltias gamming and try diferent things.

this was a general idea of what you can do.

TheStealthDude · April 2017

@Locriana

You can do a rather decent hybrid DK, but you will need a 5 pc crafted Pelinals set (medium). It won't be as good as pure magicka or.pure stamina builds, but it can be pretty fun to play and good enough for vet dungeons (15k-20k Dps with a good setup). I actually just retired my hybrid DK, but only because I really wanted to play magicka DK again.

Basically, if you want to run medium (a good choice for hybrid Pelinals characters), you should pair it with other sets that add +Weapon Damage, like Agility and Velidreth, for example. You will absolutely need to have Tri-stat enchants on your gear to get your Max Stamina and Max Magicka up, though, which makes the build somewhat expensive.

I also like 5pc Pelinals, 5pc Red Mountain and 2pc Velidreth for a hybrid DK. Use Flurry to proc Red Mountain in between your other DK skills. Make sure your back bar staff keeps the 5pc Pelinals bonus.

It is unfortunate that you are an Altmer, because Dunmer, on top of being the one of the best DK race's, also happens to be the best hybrid race.

Locriana · April 2017

Wow it looks like I did this all wrong on two of my three characters... My Dunmer is a sorceress and I love playing her, but she's split too between restoration staff and bow. With lght armor. Looks like I should've gone with res staff - des staff on her. And the bow, dual wield combo on the altmer. Though they are the wrong races for what they are doing. I also have my Dunmer as a super-crafter, so she has a lot of skill points in that (spends spare time looking for sky shards...) I usually go with res staff only in dungeons with her, and she does pretty well.
If I'm understanding you all, the attribute points you put into magic and stamina directly affect the amount of damage you can do per hit? Or is it just the obvious fact that you will run out your stamina or magic bar too quickly if it's lower? If the latter, then I just switch bars and I'm ok. I also recharge magicka with my res staff constantly with the Dunmer and use Twilight Matriarch on both bars as a source of healing the crew. If it's just using up the magicka, then not so bad. If the magicka attributes affect the damage of each hit directly, then I'm in trouble.
Thanks for all the information and I'd love to hear more. Don't have much to spend but I'll go for an attribute switch if necessary....but then I'd have to redo skill points as well....ugh... (There goes the Orsinium DLC I was saving for...). And of course I'd have to level the bow for the altmer and the destruction staff for the Dunmer...
All this leads me to wonder how this works when most class skills use magicka. My Templar is a swordsman, being a Redguard, heavy armor, but I've split my attributes between magic and stamina, considering he is usually hired as a healer and needs that magicka for healing spells. He works pretty well for both healing and damage, with food buffs.
Lots to consider, and I will be listening to all suggestions.
Thank you!

Locriana · April 2017

@theStealthDude What is a 5 pc crafted Pelinals set? I'm assuming you mean a set as is dropped in dungeons (I haven't seen that one), but how can 'sets' be crafted? Sorry, I'm not understanding you, and I'd like to.

Locriana · April 2017

@TheStealthDude and anyone else who can see this
I'm very much appreciating all the help here, but I apparently made the mistake of clicking yes on 'does this answer your question' on several answers and that made the last couple answers (which were the first ones I clicked actually) disappear on this thread. Realizing should have put this under discussion instead of questions as it is more of a discussion than one answer. Any way to get those answers back? Sorry if I'm being dense here...

Locriana · April 2017

And I still am not clear on one aspect of all this. Say I have a stamina character, how do I allot attribute points to allow for the fact that most class skills use magicka?

TheStealthDude · April 2017

The answer were simply moved to the top of the thread, don't worry!

For your stamina character question: that's just the nature of stamina characters. They have few (especially DKs) stamina abilities. Most of your damage skills will come from the weapon skill lines. Use your magicka class abilities for utility (such as buffs), as opposed to damage, for a stamina character.

For a stamina character, allot your attributes to max stamina (with some in max health if needed).

Locriana · April 2017

Oh, sorry, I'm not used to these forum mechanics! My light armor Dunmer is the nine trait crafter, but I'm assuming she'll need those traits in medium armor, not light...Wish I knew all this a couple years ago....My stamina Altmer apparently has work to do...
Thanks for your patience, all.

TheStealthDude · April 2017

Yes, you will need 9 traits for each of the medium pieces or weapons you wish to craft Pelinals for.

Your hybrid style can definitely be improved this way, but I would also suggest trying to get a deeper understanding of the game mechanics. There are some really good forum posts floating around (you may need of Google to find them) about the inner workings of the game mechanics. The game does a poor job at explaining a lot of this to us, as you have probably noticed. You will need a good understanding and some creativity to really make a hybrid build work, as it is definitely not mainstream in game or on these forums.

Lefthy · April 2017

Alright, lets take a moment and think about your options.

First of all, it seems that you didnt have a lot of information about how the resources work on your dps and how the class skills give other bonuses apart from the weapon skill.

But thats ok, dont panic, even if the hybrid builds are not optimal for high end content (Trials, Maeltrom Arena maybe) you can do the 90% of the game whit whatever you fell more fun to play.

Of course if you want to get the most out of your playstyle you will need to learn how everything works.

Dont spend crowns on repects, and redo skill lines, just work with what you have now and just save some gold for a future respect, go buy orsinium its an awesome DCL!

lest work on your DK ok?

So you want a medium armor dps, whit dual wield and destro stuff. ok you can work with that, here are my sugestion:

Put the thief mundus

Find a crafter that can make you the pelinal set, ask in your guild or with your friends in game, if you dont find wisp me and i can make you a set @Lefthy
Get 1 heavy armor piece (chest), 1 light armor piece (waist) and 3 medium pieces (hand, pants and shoes) so you can get mores resources from the undaunted pasive undaunted mettle (if you didnt level up undaunted use it anyways, you will lvl that up doing dungeons) get them divines

Then the idea is to get 3 agility jewerly pieces robust (put weapon enchants on them), 1 piece of the velidret set and 1 piece of the molag kena set on medium and divines. so you can get a high weapon damage and critical chance.

In the meantime, use drop jewerly robust and 2 pieces of night mother gaze medium divines

Then you will need the weapons
I would use 2 swords or daggers night mother gaze sharpened, a crafter can make those too.
And 1 fire staff sharpended, make that night mother gaze too.

with all of that you could manage a pretty decent dps, you now just need to find a rotation:

I woul use the destro staff to make aoe damage, and put the single target skills on the dual wield.

so maybe something like this

Dual bar - poison claws / blood craze / blood thirst / flames of oblivion / vigor ultimate: flawless dawnbreaker
Destro staff - molten whip / eruption / elemental blockade / trap beast / igneous weapons utimate: standart of might

or something like that.

Just try what suits you better whitout losing to much dps and learn when and how use the skills you have.

And dont forget the food! tri stat food if you can!

Stannum · April 2017

Hybrids are ineffective atm.
So you should choose one: medium armour OR destro staff and focus proper attr (stamina for medium armour or magicka for destro). DW is not a problem as has good passive buff even for magicka build (still if you re not using active skill from that skilline).
If you want go med your best choise will be DW/bow or DW/DW but you racial bonuses will not help you for stamina build.
If you go destro you should change armour to light and use DK-class fire skills (like molten whipe or burning embers) on your DW-bar. That will be pretty strong magicka build for altmer.

AverageJo3Gam3r · April 2017

You don't need to spend cash money to reset skills and attributes. You can reset them for in game gold in your capital city (elden root, wayrest, or mournhold).

Xvorg · April 2017

Locriana wrote: »

Wow it looks like I did this all wrong on two of my three characters... My Dunmer is a sorceress and I love playing her, but she's split too between restoration staff and bow. With lght armor. Looks like I should've gone with res staff - des staff on her. And the bow, dual wield combo on the altmer. Though they are the wrong races for what they are doing. I also have my Dunmer as a super-crafter, so she has a lot of skill points in that (spends spare time looking for sky shards...) I usually go with res staff only in dungeons with her, and she does pretty well.
If I'm understanding you all, the attribute points you put into magic and stamina directly affect the amount of damage you can do per hit? Or is it just the obvious fact that you will run out your stamina or magic bar too quickly if it's lower? If the latter, then I just switch bars and I'm ok. I also recharge magicka with my res staff constantly with the Dunmer and use Twilight Matriarch on both bars as a source of healing the crew. If it's just using up the magicka, then not so bad. If the magicka attributes affect the damage of each hit directly, then I'm in trouble.
Thanks for all the information and I'd love to hear more. Don't have much to spend but I'll go for an attribute switch if necessary....but then I'd have to redo skill points as well....ugh... (There goes the Orsinium DLC I was saving for...). And of course I'd have to level the bow for the altmer and the destruction staff for the Dunmer...
All this leads me to wonder how this works when most class skills use magicka. My Templar is a swordsman, being a Redguard, heavy armor, but I've split my attributes between magic and stamina, considering he is usually hired as a healer and needs that magicka for healing spells. He works pretty well for both healing and damage, with food buffs.
Lots to consider, and I will be listening to all suggestions.
Thank you!

Dunmer sorc is the only char that can be build towards hybrid without pelinal's. But you need to use DW or 2H and bow, some class skills and power surge.

when build prperly you can get a 2.7K wpn and spell dmg with surge.

TheStealthDude · April 2017

Xvorg wrote: »

Locriana wrote: »

Wow it looks like I did this all wrong on two of my three characters... My Dunmer is a sorceress and I love playing her, but she's split too between restoration staff and bow. With lght armor. Looks like I should've gone with res staff - des staff on her. And the bow, dual wield combo on the altmer. Though they are the wrong races for what they are doing. I also have my Dunmer as a super-crafter, so she has a lot of skill points in that (spends spare time looking for sky shards...) I usually go with res staff only in dungeons with her, and she does pretty well.
If I'm understanding you all, the attribute points you put into magic and stamina directly affect the amount of damage you can do per hit? Or is it just the obvious fact that you will run out your stamina or magic bar too quickly if it's lower? If the latter, then I just switch bars and I'm ok. I also recharge magicka with my res staff constantly with the Dunmer and use Twilight Matriarch on both bars as a source of healing the crew. If it's just using up the magicka, then not so bad. If the magicka attributes affect the damage of each hit directly, then I'm in trouble.
Thanks for all the information and I'd love to hear more. Don't have much to spend but I'll go for an attribute switch if necessary....but then I'd have to redo skill points as well....ugh... (There goes the Orsinium DLC I was saving for...). And of course I'd have to level the bow for the altmer and the destruction staff for the Dunmer...
All this leads me to wonder how this works when most class skills use magicka. My Templar is a swordsman, being a Redguard, heavy armor, but I've split my attributes between magic and stamina, considering he is usually hired as a healer and needs that magicka for healing spells. He works pretty well for both healing and damage, with food buffs.
Lots to consider, and I will be listening to all suggestions.
Thank you!

Dunmer sorc is the only char that can be build towards hybrid without pelinal's. But you need to use DW or 2H and bow, some class skills and power surge.

when build prperly you can get a 2.7K wpn and spell dmg with surge.

Just curious why you say only Sorc can do hybrid without Pelinals, since I don't have as much experience with that class. Is it because Power Surge gives both Major Brutality AND Major Sorcery? Because DK has Igneous Weapons, which does the same (though without the healing, admittedly). DK also has Flames of Oblivion which helps with a larger problem for hybrids: Crit.

But either way, hybrids are roped into a couple of mandatory elements, whether it be Pelinals or certain gear/skill requirements. I think this next patch will close the gap a bit between hybrids a pure builds, though, which will be nice.

The Elder Scrolls Online

Improve or rebuild my Dragonknight?

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