Powerful SOLO Magicka Dragonknight Build for ESO (Elder Scrolls Online)

• Solo Setup
  • Gear (Setup 1,2,3)
  • Skills
  • Champion Points
  • Important Info (Food, Mundus, Race, Potions, Passives, Attributes)
• Resource Management
• Rotation
• Bad Habits
• Vateshran Hollows & Maelstrom Arena Setup
• Endless Archive Setup
• Gameplay
• Update Log

Welcome to the “SOLO MagDK” Magicka Dragonknight Build for PvE in ESO (Elder Scrolls Online). This build is optimized for solo play. Make sure to bookmark the link as I will keep updating the build for each new Update of ESO. If you are new I recommend checking out the Magicka Dragonknight Beginner Guide and the Magicka Dragonknight Beginner 160CP Build before you tackle on this setup. You can also find a META Magicka Dragonknight Group Build that is made for dungeons and trials.

Other Magicka Dragonknight Guides:

• Magicka Dragonknight Beginner Guide (Read first if you are a new player)
• Magicka Dragonknight Beginner 160CP Build (Made for new players, after you finished the Beginner Guide)
• META Magicka Dragonknight Group Build (Endgame META build)

This build here is specifically designed for SOLO play. You can play this build in Overland, Dungeons (normal and veteran), Maelstrom Arena or Vateshran Arena. I also made sure to give you a few gear choices below because it is not always easy to get the right gear in Elder Scrolls Online. Magicka Dragonknights are very powerful in a Solo environment both in dealing damage and staying alive.

Magicka Dragonknights are very damage over time focused, so we want to keep DoTs like Burning Embers and Engulfing Flames active all the time. Combining the healing tick of Burning Embers with a set like Ring of the Pale Order or alternatively Iceheart will also always guarantee that we get our health back up without too much trouble.

• Solo Build for Normal & Veteran Dungeons
• Solo Build for Maelstrom & Vateshran Hollows Arena
• Solo Build for Overland
• Easy to get Gear & Advanced Setups
• Big Shield
• Good Self Healing
• Great Damage

Solo Setup Magicka Dragonknight

5x Perf. False God, 5x Mother’s Sorrow, 1x Pale Order, 1x Swarm Mother on a High Elf with Clockwork Citrus Filet food.

• Unbuffed: Out of combat, and buff food active.
• Buffed: In combat, buff food, Volatile Armor, Major Sorcery, Major Prophecy, Seething Fury and Weapon Damage enchantment active.

Gear Solo Magicka Dragonknight

If you want to see more viable gear options I recommend reading the Magicka DPS Gear Sets Article which explains all of the sets in detail.

• Setup 1 Most Optimal Setup
• Setup 2 Easy to get Gear
• Setup 3 Beginner Setup

Gear Setup 1 – Solo Magicka Dragonknight

• Monster Set: We are only using a one-piece Monster Set because we have the Ring of the Pale Order Mythic item equipped. The reason we use Swarm Mother is simple, it provides us with extra stats for both Magicka and Stamina. It has a double bonus compared to most other one-piece monster sets.
• False God’s Devotion: False God’s Devotion is very powerful in both the imperfect and perfect versions, I can highly recommend this set. You can farm it fairly easily in normal mode Sunspire.
• Ring of the Pale Order: The Mythic item Ring of the Pale Order provides us with a lot of extra passive healing as long as we deal damage.
• No Ring of the Pale Order? You can also keep using 2x Iceheart like before.

Gear Setup 2 – Solo Magicka Dragonknight

This setup is easier to acquire and also has more defensive stats compared to the first one, which means it’s safer to play. Once again, make sure to use the Iceheart Monster Set, it really makes a huge difference in terms of defense, it procs very easily and gives you a huge shield that absorbs a lot of damage.

Julianos can be crafted and Mother’s Sorrow can be farmed in the Deshaan Overland zone or you can also buy them via the Guild Store. It would be preferable if you get the gear with the divine trait, but you can also use any other trait, you will not lose that much power. And non-divine gear pieces are usually very cheap to buy.

Setup 3 Beginner – Solo Magicka Dragonknight

Ask a guildmate to craft you Julianos. Mother’s Sorrow can be obtained for a pretty cheap price in the guildstores if you do not pick the best in-slot trait. More important is that you just get the full sets together as fast as possible, even if you do not have the best traits.

Where can I get the gear?

False God’s Devotion: Sunspire
Perfected False God’s Devotion: vet Sunspire
Ring of the Pale Order Antiquities
Mother’s Sorrow: Deshaan Overland, Guildtrader
Tzogvin’s Warband: Frostvault Dungeon
Julianos: Craftable
Swarm Mother: vSpindleclutch 1
Iceheart: Head: Direfrost Keep, Shoulder: Glirion Undaunted Chest
Magnus’ Gift: Craftable in Rivenspire, Greenshade, Shadowfen

IMPORTANT: You can get a Lightning Mother’s Sorrow Staff by doing a simple quest, that way you earn the staff, yes it isn’t optimal for a Dragonknight which has a lot of fire damage, but better than nothing for the start! You will receive the “Argonian Muck Minder of Mother’s Sorrow” from the Quest in Silent Mire, Deshaan.

Skills Solo Magicka Dragonknight

• Remember, you can change out some of the abilities if you want or never use them. And you can also adjust the bars.

Skill explanation for the Solo Magicka Dragonknight:

• Burning Embers: Always apply this on the strongest enemy, you heal a lot with this ability. You can apply the skill to multiple enemies to get more healing ticks.
• Engulfing Flames: Keep this DoT on the enemies, it increases your overall damage.
• Molten Whip: Your main single target damage ability.
• Harness Magicka: Activate this if you are expecting to get a huge punch in the face (Boss Heavy Attack for example). This will bolster your health.
• Flames of Oblivion: Another powerful damage over time effect! It also applies Major Prophecy to you, increasing your Spell Crit by 10%!
• Ferocious Leap: This is your “oh crap!” ultimate, if you are low on health or have difficulties surviving, activate this ultimate to gain a big shield and deal damage at the same time. It is also very low cost so you will have it ready most of the time.
• Unstable Wall of Elements: Your main AoE ability, has to be on the ground all the time.
• Mystic Orb: Powerful AoE damage over time effect.
• Elemental Susceptibility: Apply this on big monsters and bosses, applies debuff to enemies increasing your damage and also applies status effects.
• Volatile Armor: Increases your resistance and healing received. Keep this up all the time, also deals a bit of damage. You can slot something else here too if you don’t need the extra resistances.
• Molten Armaments: This is your tool to gain Major Sorcery (20% Spell Damage buff). The ability also increases your heavy attack damage.
• Standard of Might: Standard of Might is your main ultimate, it increases your damage and also your mitigation.

Champion Points for Solo Magicka Dragonknight

Click the tab below to open the allocation.

Important Info for Solo Magicka Dragonknight

Buff-food

You have the option between two different buff foods/drinks for this build. It is crucial that you use either one of these because they give very important stats, health, magick and magicka recovery. You can use the more expensive Clockwork Citrus Filet or the less expensive version Witchmother’s Potent Brew. The difference between both is very small, I only use the expensive one for very difficult content to get a tiny bit more stats, otherwise I always use the less expensive version to save money.

Info: If you click on the URL you will get directed to a detailed page of the buff food/drink where you can see the prices too.

Clockwork Citrus Filet
(Max Health, Max Magicka, Magicka Recovery, Health Recovery)

Witchmother’s Potent Brew
(Max Health, Max Magicka, Magicka Recovery)

Mundus Stone

The Lover Mundus Stone is the best choice for this setup, it increases our overall spell penetration, which boosts our damage. You can also visit the Mundus Stone Overview Page for additional information regarding all the Mundus Stones.

The Lover Mundus Stone (Increased Spell Penetration)

Race

All Magicka-based races work with this setup. More about each race can be found on the racial overview page.

High Elf
Breton
Dark Elf
Argonian
Khajiit
Orc

Potions

Depending on what skills you use, you won’t have to necessarily use expensive potions. If you have Flames of Oblivion and Molten Armaments on your bars like above, then you can use normal Essence of Magicka potions. Because these two skills already give you Major Sorcery and Major Prophecy.

Spell-Power Potions
(Spell-crit, Spell Damage, Magicka)
(Cornflower, Ladys Smock, Water Hyacinth)

Essence of Magicka Potion
(Magicka)
(Bought in Guild Stores, fairly cheap)

Important: Make sure to get alchemy to level 50 to unlock the Medicinal Use passive. That way you can keep up the buffs of potions a 100% of the time.

Passives

• Ardent Flame: Combustion, Warmth, Searing Heat, World in Ruin
• Draconic Power: Iron Skin, Burning Heart, Elder Dragon, Scaled Armor
• Earthen Heart: Eternal Mountain, Battle Roar, Mountain’s Blessing, Helping Hands
• Destruction Staff: Tri Focus, Penetrating Magic, Elemental Force, Ancient Knowledge, Destruction Expert
• Light Armor: Grace, Evocation, Spell Warding, Prodigy, Concentration
• Undaunted: Undaunted Command, Undaunted Mettle
• Racial: All
• Alchemy: Medicinal Use

Attributes

All into Magicka. I recommend getting around 18-20k Health.

64 Magicka, 0 Health, 0 Stamina

Resource Management

Resource management with a solo build is slightly different compared to a group setup because you can’t really rely on your healer to give you resources back. Now that doesn’t really matter because we have other means of restoring resources. Your main tool for restoring resources is your heavy attacks, they are pretty slow but you will regain a lot of resources.

You can also use your potions on cooldown which will return a lot of extra resources. Whenever you are using your Ultimate ability the Battle Roar passive will proc and you will restore a lot of stamina, health and magicka at the same time, so learn to time it correctly!

• Heavy Attacks
• Potions
• Battle Roar

Rotation

If you want to learn more about weaving light attacks, you can check out this guide: “Weaving Beginner Guide”.

For this kind of setup, there is not a fixed rotation at all, your main goal should always be to stay alive and you do that by keeping up your shield and healing abilities.

1. ALWAYS keep up Burning Embers on the enemy, Burning Embers is your strongest heal, but it always needs an enemy to keep ticking.
2. Molten Armament and Volatile Armor are also important, make sure to keep them active too because they provide powerful buffs.
3. Keep up your DoTs, you have 3-4 DoTs that should always be active as much as possible. Burning Embers, Engulfing Flames, Unstable Wall of Elements and Mystic Orb.

Bad Habits

• A lot of people have a bad habit of forgetting their back bar abilities, you should really focus on always weapon swapping enough to re-apply the DoTs and buffs on your back bar.
• Keeping your shield up with the Harness Magicka skill is key in this build, if you lose health or drop low you want to make sure to keep the shield up while Burning Embers is healing you back up.
• Always keep moving your character around, if you just stand on the ground you take unnecessary damage from melee monsters, that damage can easily be avoided by kiting (running away backward from the enemy and still dealing damage to him.

Vateshran Hollows & Maelstrom Arena Setup

Magicka Dragonknight Vateshran Hollows & Maelstrom Build Setup.

• For specific tips and tricks please check out the Vateshran Hollows Guide and the Maelstrom Arena Guide which explains everything in detail.
• Ring of the Pale Order provides a lot of extra healing, I recommend getting this Mythic item, it makes the arena a lot easier.
• If you don’t have access to Mythic items, please use the gear setups above.

Gear Setup

Skills

Most of our damage is focused on AoE, which will make the Ring of the Pale Order even more powerful when we hit several targets. Always keep your buffs/debuffs active.

Endless Archive Setup for Solo Magicka Dragonknight Build

Here you can find a setup that works well inside ESO’s Endless Archive when you play solo with the Solo Magicka Dragonknight Build. Make sure to read the ESO Endless Archive Guide to understand what is going on inside the archive.

• Endless Archive gets progressively harder
• You need to know boss mechanics, otherwise one-shots will occur often.
• Understanding how the Endless Archive works is important
• If you get stuck, change gear or skills and try again.

Gear Setup

Inside the Endless Archive, we recommend running the following setup for our Solo Magicka Dragonknight Build: 5x Whorl of Depths (Frontbar), 5x Pillar of Nirn (Backbar), 1x Ring of Pale Order, 2x Iceheart. All the sets are procing automatically, therefore you won’t have to worry about keeping track of any of them. This is great, that way we can focus more on the combat and our abilities.

Skills

Most of our damage is focused on AoE, which will make the Ring of the Pale Order even more powerful when we hit several targets. Always keep your buffs/debuffs active.

Buff-Food

If you have sustain issues then it is recommended to use the Ghastly Eye Bowl buff food because it gives us a huge amount of Magicka Recovery and Max Magicka, but your Health will be lower. If you don’t have sustain issues, then it is recommended to use the Clockwork Citrus Filet or the less expensive version Witchmother’s Potent Brew.

Gameplay – Solo Magicka Dragonknight

In this video, we are using the Vateshran Hollows setup. If you want to learn more about Vateshran Hollows, you can also check out the Vateshran Hollows overview page or the Vateshran Hollows Guide.

Update Log – Solo Magicka Dragonknight

04.02.2020 Added the Solo Magicka Dragonknight Build for the Harrowstorm DLC.
17.05.2020 Updated the build for the GREYMOOR CHAPTER.
23.10.2020 Updated the build for the MARKARTH DLC, Greymoor Chapter.
05.03.2021 Updated the Build for the FLAMES OF AMBITION DLC, Blackwood Chapter.
25.05.2021 Updated the Build for the BLACKWOOD CHAPTER.
09.08.2021 Updated the Build for the WAKING FLAME DLC, Blackwood Chapter.
13.10.2021 Updated the Build for the DEADLANDS DLC, Blackwood Chapter.
04.03.2022 Updated the Build for the ASCENDING TIDE DLC, High Isle Chapter.
13.05.2022 Updated the Build for the HIGH ISLE CHAPTER.
03.08.2022 Updated the Build for the LOST DEPTHS DLC, High Isle Chapter.
24.10.2022 Updated the Build for the FIRESONG DLC, High Isle Chapter.
08.03.2023 Updated the Build for the SCRIBES OF FATE DLC, Necrom Chapter.
01.06.2023 Updated the Build for the ESO NECROM CHAPTER.
23.10.2023 Updated the Build for Update 40.
06.03.2024 Updated the Build for the Scions of Ithelia DLC U41, Gold Road Chapter.