best advice is give it a try ... currently i have an imperial mag templar that i play ( under lvl 50 ) ... the extra stam from imperial is nice in pvp

Hi. Welcome to Tamriel, how are you finding it so far?

I think you are probably doing much better than you say because you seem to really have a good approach to the game. It is a fantastic idea to make your first character a crafter (you'll be glad of that later) and to play through the main quests of your faction (that's how the game was intended to be played and it teaches a lot about how to play your character).

You seem to understand that overland PVE quests have much, much easier enemies than group dungeons - and when people are not expecting the jump in difficulty they are useless in group dungeons. I expect you could kill a group of three normal mobs with nothing but the whip ability! In group dungeons the enemies have more health and they come in bigger groups...

For me the single best advice I got was to increase the number of damage over time (DoT) abilities I was putting on enemies - DK's have lots of abilities which do damage over time to a whole group of enemies, put them on and don't use that ability again until they run out. I've seen mediocre builds that can drop enough area of effect DoT's on large groups of mobs that they do over 100kdps - you don't have to have much spell power if you are doing damage to everyone every second!

It sounds cheesy but the best way to get good at hard content is to practice doing harder content. Public dungeons are a good half-way point between normal solo content and group dungeons. I'd suggest working on your skill rotations in the many public dungeons of tamriel. Each public dungeon has something called a "group event" which is some kind of boss - if you find you can solo, or nearly solo a group event then you are going to breeze through normal group dungeons.

I know you said you were not thinking about a build yet, but copying what you can from a proven build may boost you in all sorts of ways.

Finally, almost everyone has to use the group finder eventually - you may meet some trolls and be kicked out of groups, but that's from players who get off on feeling superior. Almost everyone I have met in eso have been normal, patient people who will have had far worse dungeon experiences because of lag, disconnection issues or sometimes very drunk players.

p.s. searing strike is a life-saver in panic situations!

Hi! My partner runs a Mag DK as her main and while she can probably give a better explanation, here's what I understand so far. As a DK you have some great potential for DoT, AoEs, and devastating single target damage. You're also capable of healing yourself a ton and shielding from a lot of damage. You're on the right track with Engulfing Flames and Burning Embers.

In fact, Burning Embers is great because it works as an emergency heal that you can control. The thing about Burning Embers is that it grants you health when the effect ends. Which means that you can use it a second time to force the first effect to end, granting you health in a pinch. Use Burning Embers on multiple enemies and you can set up a large heal for yourself in advance.

There are lots of nice skills that can enhance DK potential. Molten Weapons raises your spell damage (better damage and healing) for a little while, Blockade of Flames from the destruction staff pairs well with your DK fire skills like Engulfing Flames, and Reflective Scales shields you from enemy projectiles while sending them back. It can be pretty destructive.

If you like playing a Dragonknight, consider sticking with them a little longer and experimenting. You might find it a lot more viable with more time and practice.

I have a magicka dragonknight. The secret to using the whip is to set the enemy off-balance first, so that the damage you do with the whip will be more, and you'll get a heal out of it at the same time (after you morph whip). You can set enemies off-balance in a couple of ways. I use Wall of Elements with a lightning staff to do it.
The main issue with using an Imperial instead of a high elf, dark elf or breton is you won't have as much magicka as you would have otherwise, but it can still be workable.
My main bar looks like this. 1, 2 and 3 should be done in order.
1. Molten Armaments (morph of Molten Weapons) - increases spell damage by 20%
2. Elemental Blockade (morph of Wall of Elements - used with lightning staff it becomes Blockade of Storms) - sets enemies off balance and does damage
3. Flame Lash (morph of Lava Whip) - damage plus a good heal if enemy is off balance, which is why you use Blockade of Storms first
4. Burning Embers (morph of Searing Strike) - a damage-over-time (DoT) spell
5. Inner Light - (morph of Mage Light) - passively increases the spell critical rating

In addition, since you're using an Imperial, you'll need to make up for the reduced magicka he has in other ways, namely by making sure all your armor and weapons are focused on boosting his magicka sustain.

I used to use the Inhale/Fiery Breath combo, too, but I've discovered she does more damage with the rotation I showed you above.

It is great to see a new player actually actively interested in getting better Welcome aboard!

It seems you've already gotten some great advices(and I'm a potato at magDKs anyway...) so I'll just add a couple generic ones.

I may have missed that - are you using set gear? That's definitely very helpful. For magicka, Julianos is always a great and easily acquireable(craftable, 6 traits) option. Due to how skills scale in ESO, you basically want to use magicka only skills(which sounds like you already have that part down) and sets boosting your spell dmg/max magicka/spellcrit/spell penetration.

It seems like you're early on in your cp, you level insanely fast there and end up outleveling your gear really fast - make sure you keep your gear at least somewhat updated, even if it's not by the best set possible. You're getting battle leveled to cp 160 but the bigger the gap between you and your gear, the weaker it is - for example a cp 10 in cp 10 gear will be almost as powerful as a cp 160 in cp 160 gear, but a cp 150 in cp 10 gear will be hitting like a wet noodle.

Also don't forget about food, typical choices for magicka users are max mag+max health or max mag+max health+mag regeneration(this one is a bit more pricey but scales with you which is pretty convenient. Called Witchmother's Potent Brew). Generally 17-20k health(with food) should be enough for everything in the game unless you decide to tank.

I'd highly recommend using light armor for sustain(if you aren't already) and light armor shield - Annulment(morph it to Harness Magicka, that makes it almost free to spam in most fights) for survivability, it really is amazing.

Far as Champion points go, you could check Alcast's mDK guide for ideal distribution for lateron if you want(he also has top notch DK dps rotation that may or may not be helpful to you at this point), but I think for now you'd be better off putting most into Ele Expert with some in Elfborn(Ele expert will also buff all DK fire skills, too ). Crushing shock is generally not used much on DKs unless they absolutely must go ranged(which implies it is a good thing to have leveled just in case).

The basic of good dps in ESO atm is that you lay down DoTs and then use your spammable until you need to renew the DoTs - for DK the spammable is the whip so you're actually doing it right For DoTs, you want Wall of Elements, Burning Embers and uhh...Engulfing flames I think? It's also generally preferred to have at least one shock staff slotted because shock heavy attack is really op for aoe situations - not just it damages all the things but it also restores magicka to you!

Like others have already said, you don't really have to change your character too. First, if you really want to you can race change(for crowns), second, you can honestly do ALL of the game's content with suboptimal race. One of best mDK dps I knew was an Imperial He left the game a while ago but back then he was like "omg that legendary guy with nearly 2k dps!!!"(back when we still had lower numbers lol) yet he wasn't even an optimal race, he was just that good. Imperial isn't all a waste too I think - you get that extra bit health so you can go all out magicka and still have enough health to survive.

Race will only really matter if you get to the point where you really feel like being competitive - not just doing vet content but being among the first to do so, not just pulling, Idk, 35k dps but pulling 38k dps, stuff like that. Aside from that it does help a bit - I mean who doesn't like free resources/damage - but it's definitely not a make it or break it kind of thing.

Even more helpful replies! Awesome thanks alot guys.

I implemented alot of what you guys were saying over the weekend. Open up with DOT attacks then spam SS or whip. When I first started I noticed what a few of you had been saying, as Imperial my Magicka pool was small. Luckily I've been grinding provisioning writs and leveling, and literally JUST REALIZED I can craft meals that buff Maximum Health and Magicka.

Regarding armor, I thought I had read somewhere that while you may only want to focus skills on one armor type, it's a good idea to get all three types to 50? My buddy being a blacksmith made me leveled heavy armor, (ikr heavy armor magicka user noob) and I went to the prison in Shadowfen and literally almost every other enemy was dropping glyphs so my magicka pool is nice right now. Realizing I should have dabbled in clothes making on this character.

@Syndey- I'm intrigued by Elemental blockade. I'm going to keep my eyes open for the next lightning staff I get and dabble in that combination. And I never considered morphing magelight. I used that skill once and was instantly miffed by how short the light lasted (my gamma is down and was hoping for an actual "flashlight") so I'll have to revisit that lol.

@Flyingdutch - I'm on PC-NA

@Magdalina - Oh my god yes! Like I did okay until about cp40 then next thing I realized I was cp90 and my gear was jank. It went so fast. Luckily my buddy just unlocked voidstone smithing so he was able to hook me up. I need to get back into light armor, as I read before I swore I read someone saying you should strive for level 50 in all three so I was working through Heavy Armor now. Then I'll be finished with all three and can go back to light. I'll have to check that guide I've been so gun shy about assigning my CP's.

@buttaface - Agreed. It seems like so many find nothing but negative things, but so far it's just been so addictingly fun. I probably need to revisit my staff passives. Really honestly I think I need to reset all my skills sometime for that reason. I spent all weekend grinding sky shards but still have things I feel like I should have focused on that I didn't


One last question this morning for you guys. We had been fishing in our spare time and selling perfect roes. I now realize My provisioner packs have been supplying me with the other two ingredients needed for making Psijic Ambrosia. From what I could tell it seems I'll need several fragments of the recipe for ambrosia, my main question is should I put skills toward connoiseuer? From what I read it seems like it adds twenty minutes onto the 30 minute ambrosia time, so do those sell for more? Cuz it's usually 10k for 4 ambrosia's right?

Okay guys, another question for yall. As opposed to making a new topic I figured I would ask here, in the hopes someone sees it. So my buddy has offered to make me some armor for my mage. My question is, what kind of trait should I pursue?

I was thinking Divines since I do alot of PVE, but then the question becomes do I use the Lady Stone for spell penetration? The Mage stone for max magicka? or the Atronach or the Apprentice??

Or do I go with infused, and load up on magicka enhancing glyphs?

Or do I do neither of the above?

And lastly, do I want it made in the Magnus Gift set? Assassins guile? Seducer? (he has 4 full traits on everything so Julianos isn't an option, just yet.)

As always, your insight is always extremely appreciated. Thank you all

Glockcoma725 wrote: »

Okay guys, another question for yall. As opposed to making a new topic I figured I would ask here, in the hopes someone sees it. So my buddy has offered to make me some armor for my mage. My question is, what kind of trait should I pursue?

I was thinking Divines since I do alot of PVE, but then the question becomes do I use the Lady Stone for spell penetration? The Mage stone for max magicka? or the Atronach or the Apprentice??

Or do I go with infused, and load up on magicka enhancing glyphs?

Or do I do neither of the above?

And lastly, do I want it made in the Magnus Gift set? Assassins guile? Seducer? (he has 4 full traits on everything so Julianos isn't an option, just yet.)

As always, your insight is always extremely appreciated. Thank you all

Divines is generally preferred, possibly with infused on big pieces(enchants are stronger on big pieces). Afaik currently the best Mundus is Lady for solo play and Apprentice(spell damage) for coordinated group play.

I can make you Julianos if you want Seems you're PC NA?
Seducer is also a great set but it's a sustain oriented one whereas Juli is pure damage.

@Storymaster Lmao thanks!

@Magdalina - Thanks for the input. I was leaning towards Lady but that seals it. But using infused on pants and shirt I hadn't considered. Def considering that now. And I am indeed. How much were you thinking? I wouldn't mind wrecking stuff wearing Juli lol.

@Rhinala I'll definately shoot you an Add tonight. My gf and I are always looking for teammates for group content!

I definately will tonight. Unfortunately I'm at work for another 5 hours =/

And I am cp155 so 160 would be excellent. I have no problem supplying Mats, just not sure how many you would need each of them, other than the trait gems. But that is very generous of you, and I would appreciate that seriously!