Powerful Dragonknight Tank Build for ESO – Elder Scrolls Online

Table of Contents

• Trials & Dungeons Setup
  • Gear
  • Skills
  • Champion Points
  • Important Info (Food, Mundus, Race, Potions, Passives, Attributes)
• Resource Management
• Blackrose Prison Arena Setup
• Endless Archive Setup
• Outfit Style Showcase
• Update Log

Welcome to the Dragonknight Tank Build PvE “Catalyst” for ESO (Elder Scrolls Online). Make sure to bookmark the link as I will keep updating the build for each new Update of ESO.

The Dragonknight Tank Build Catalyst is optimized for Dungeons, Arenas, and Trials. Keep in mind there is a huge variety of different tank builds out there that synergize well depending on your group setup in ESO. Remember, each Trial, Dungeon, or Arena needs some small adjustments to the build. For example, if you think you need more health, go for it!

Other Tank Guides:

• All Tank Guides
• Beginner’s Tanking Guide
• Advanced Tanking Guide
• Endgame Tank Sets

Dragonknights are by far the most popular tanking class. Naturally, because of their skills and passives Dragonknights are just truly made for tanking. They have a lot of good shields that they can apply to themselves and the group which helps with survival.

Dragonknights also have strong self-healing and very good resource management through passives, which I will explain in more detail in the resource management section. More resistance and increased amount of damage that you can block are also included in the passives. If you go through the Draconic Power & Earthen Heart Class skill line you will notice that fairly quickly.

Dragonknights also have a very unique skill called Unrelenting Grip that they can use to pull enemies toward the groups. And let us not forget about Magma Armor, the god mode ultimate where you can’t die for the next few seconds if things get tricky.

• Trial, Dungeon & Arena
• Tank/ Support Build
• Heavy Armor
• Great Sustain
• Great Survivability
• Great Self Healing
• Great Shielding

Trials & Dungeons Setup Dragonknight Tank Build

In this section, we are going to take a look at the ESO Dragonknight Tank Build setup.

5x Turning Tide, 5x Powerful Assault, 2x Nazaray, 2x Puncturing Remedy with Bewitched Sugar Skills on a Nord.

• Unbuffed: Out of combat, buff-food active.
• Buffed: In combat, Raid Target Dummy buffs, Balance, Powerful Assault and Puncture Remedy set, Tri-Stat Potions are active.

Gear Dragonknight Tank Build

Gear Setup

Gear Combo: Combining the sets Turning Tide and Nazaray creates a powerful combo. You can apply Major Vulnerability with Turning Tide and then activate an ultimate to proc Nazaray to get a very extended duration on the Major Vulnerability debuff. Basically increasing the damage output for the whole group for a long duration. If you have 500 ultimate points saved up you get an additional 25 seconds of Major Vulnerability, increasing the total time to 35 seconds!

Backbar Weapon: We use a Frost staff as a base back bar weapon, because of the Ancient Knowledge passive. However, you can also use a Lightning Staff or another sword and board if you wish to do so.

Puncturing Remedy: If you don’t have access to the Puncturing Remedy set you can simply use Powerful Assault on the frontbar too.

Beginner Gear Setup

This beginner setup is here for people that do not have access to the other setup now. You can ask a friend to craft Fortified Brass and Torug’s Pact for you. You could also use Plague Doctor instead of Torug’s Pact as it is available in the Guild Stores for a cheap price.

Where can I get the gear?

Turning Tide: Shipwright’s Regret dungeon
Powerful Assault: Imperial City Vault, Guildstores
Puncturing Remedy: nDragonstar Arena
Perfected Puncturing Remedy: vDragonstar Arena
Nazaray: vShipwright’s Regret dungeon, Undaunted Enclave rewards.
Fortified Brass: Craftable
Torug’s Pact: Craftable
Night’s Silence: Craftable
Plague Doctor: Deshaan, Guildstore

Skills Dragonknight Tank Build

Make sure to adjust your skills to your needs, this setup is not maced into stone, make sure to adjust skills depending on the situation of a fight.

Skills explanation:

• Green Dragon Blood: While active, you receive a 12% healing received due to the Burning Heart passive. Also gives you an insane burst heal if needed.
• Absorb Missile: Gives you a big shield, plus if you get hit by a projectile you also get some health back!
• Pierce Armor: Your main taunt, also debuffs the enemy with Major Breach, reducing Spell and Physical Resistance by 5948.
• Igneous Shield: Big Shield that can Absorb a lot of damage and also gives you Major Mending, increasing your healing by 16% for the next 2,5s. You could also choose the other morph if you want an extended Major Mending uptime (Fragmented Shield)!
• Heoric Slash: When activated adds Minor Heroism, increasing your Ultigen and also adds Minor Maim to the enemy, reducing his damage done.
• Magma Shell: Use this Ultimate in tough situations, gives you god-mode for 12 seconds.
• Echoing Vigor: Applies an AoE heal and also activates the set Powerful Assault.
• Elemental Blockade: If you are using a frost staff, this can proc Minor Brittle and Minor Maim on the enemy, which increases enemy critical damage taken and reduces enemy damage. Also provides a small shield to allies.
• Inner Rage: This is your ranged taunt, in case you can not get to a mob fast enough.
• Unrelenting Grip: This is your chain to pull enemies to you, very reliable and helps kill mobs faster.
• Balance: One of the most important skills for this setup. If you use Balance you restore 3000 Magicka and you gain Major Resolve to increase your physical and spell resistance by 5948. IMPORTANT: Be aware that when you use the skill, that all shields and healing will be cut in half for the next 4 seconds.

Why no Volatile Armor? The Balance skill gives you the same armor buffs as Volatile Armor, it is also very essential to the build, as it literally gives you INFINITE sustain.

Champion Points for the DK Tank Build

Below you can find the Champion Points setup for this build. Work your way from top to bottom in your allocation. For more information on Champion Points, please visit the Champion Points Overview Page on ESO-Hub.com.

Important:

• Warfare Tree: This tree gives you a mix between damage, healing and damage mitigation.
• Fitness Tree: This tree gives you extra health, sustain and defensive buffs.
• Craft Tree: This tree is mostly optional, nothing really “impacts” combat, therefore you can pick whatever you prefer, or use the preset below.
• Perks: Hovering over each perk will give you insights on what it does. Presets are also provided for each of the allocations below.

Click the tab below to open the allocation.

Important Info for Dragonknight Tank Build PvE “Catalyst”

Buff-food

In general, most Tanks like to go with max resource buff foods such as the Bewitched Sugar Skulls or the cheaper version Longfin pasty with Melon Sauce. However, you could also use Jewels of Misrule which provides Health and a lot of Magicka and Stamina recovery.

Longfin pasty with Melon Sauce (Max Health+Max Stamina+Max Magicka)

Bewitched Sugar Skulls

The Bewitched Sugar Skulls is a slightly more advanced version that has a bit higher stats and also includes health recovery. Though it also costs more.

You can also visit the Buff Food and Drinks Overview Page for more information on all food and drinks.

Mundus Stone

The Lord is a good Mundus Stone to increase maximum Health. However, you can also use other available Mundus Stones if you don’t need the extra Health. For an overview of all the Mundus Stones in ESO you can check out the Mundus Stone Overview Page.

The Lord Mundus Stone (Max Health)

Race

You can find more about racial passives in the ESO Race Overview page.

Nord
Argonian
Imperial
Orc
Redguard
Dark Elf

Potions

For hard content, I recommend using crafted or crown store Tri-Stat potions.

Tri-Stat Potion
(Health, Stamina, Magicka)
(Bugloss, Columbine, Mountain Flower)

Passives

• Ardent Flame: World in Ruin
• Draconic Power: Iron Skin, Burning Heart, Elder Dragon, Scaled Armor
• Earthen Heart: Eternal Mountain, Battle Roar, Mountain’s Blessing, Helping Hands
• One Hand and Shield: Fortress, Sword and Board, Deadly Bash, Deflect Bolts, Battlefield Mobility
• Destruction Staff: Penetrating Magic, Elemental Force, Ancient Knowledge, Destruction Expert (Note: Do not activate Tri Focus passive)
• Heavy Armor: Resolve, Constitution, Juggernaut, Revitalize, Rapid Mending
• Medium Armor:  If you have spare skillpoints, max out this skill line too.
• Light Armor: If you have spare skillpoints, max out this skill line too.
• Mages Guild: Mage Adept
• Undaunted: Undaunted Command, Undaunted Mettle
• Racial: All
• Alchemy: Medicinal Use

Attributes

You have to make sure to have a bit more Stamina than Magicka. Because the Synergies you pick up give you back whatever stat is higher. You can change this to your liking, if you do not need that much health, get more stamina.

24 Magicka, 20 Health, 20 Stamina

Resource Management for the ESO Dragonknight Tank Build

Dragonknights have insane resource management compared to other tank classes.

Battle Roar returns resources when we use an Ultimate and Helping Hands passive returns Stamina when we use the Igneous Shield skill. These two mechanics alone already outperform other tank classes by a huge margin.

Energy Orb is a skill that Healers use to throw into the group. You can use the synergy this skill provides to regain around 4000 resources. Our max Stamina is a bit higher than our Max Magicka, that is because you will get resources depending on your higher max Stamina or Magicka. And because we are a tank, Stamina is definitely more important.

Heavy Attacks restore a big amount of stamina, if you hit an off-balanced enemy it gives twice the amount back. You don’t need to permablock, try to find time to do Heavy Attacks in your rotation.

Potions are also a key to managing your resources well, I recommend using Tri-Stat potions to regain all three resources at the same time. Further below you will learn how to craft the right potions.

This build has very low Magicka Recovery because we use Balance to manage our Magicka resources and additionally boost our resistances.

• Battle Roar Passive
• Helping Hands Passive
• Orbs (Undaunted skill-line)
• Heavy Attacks
• Potions
• Balance

Choosing an Argonian as a race for your tank will also increase sustain due to the Resourceful racial passive.

Blackrose Prison Arena Setup

Make sure to check out the full Blackrose Prison Arena Guide where I also talk about tank specific tips for the Arena.

Your main job in the Arena is to position the monsters correctly so your damage dealers can focus on AoE damage. Therefore you will need your Spell Symmetry and Unrelenting Grip a lot. Spell Symmetry helps regain magicka quickly and reduces the cost of your next chain cast. (Please keep in mind in the normal setup we use Balance, so you might want to change to this morph in this arena)

To optimize the time that you can spend on using Spell Symmetry and chaining, we are using the Mighty Chudan Monster Set. Having permanent Major Ward and Major Resolve (Increased Spell and Physical Resistance by 5948) is good, because that way we do not need to use another skill (such as Volatile Armor like usually) that costs magicka to keep those two very important buffs up. Therefore you can focus more on chaining. In addition, Mighty Chudan also gives you even more resistance (1487 Resistance and another health bonus (1206 extra health).

We are using Drake’s Rush to increase overall ultimate regeneration a lot. The second set is up to you. I can recommend Battalion Defender which really boosts your overall heals for the whole group or Akaviri Dragonguard to get reduced ultimate cost or sets like War Machine or Powerful Assault. You might wonder if Alkosh is a good choice for the Arena, I can not recommend it as with a team of four players, synergies are rare and it is hard to keep up the Alkosh debuff on the bosses, therefore War Machine or Power Assault are the better choices.

Gear	Set	Weight	Trait	Enchantment
Chest	Drake’s Rush	Heavy	Reinforced	Tri Stat Enchantment
Belt	Drake’s Rush	Heavy	Sturdy	Health Enchantment
Shoes	Drake’s Rush	Heavy	Sturdy	Health Enchantment
Pants	Drake’s Rush	Heavy	Infused	Tri Stat Enchantment
Hands	Drake’s Rush	Heavy	Sturdy	Health Enchantment
Head	Mighty Chudan	Light	Infused	Tri Stat Enchantment
Shoulder	Mighty Chudan	Medium	Sturdy	Health Enchantment
Necklace	Battalion Defender	Jewelry	Infused	Reduce Prismatic Cost Enchant (Idenko Glyph)
Ring	Battalion Defender	Jewelry	Infused	Reduce Prismatic Cost Enchant (Idenko Glyph)
Ring	Battalion Defender	Jewelry	Infused	Bracing Enchant
Weapon 1 S&B	Battalion Defender	1H-Weap	Decisive	Weakening Enchantment
Weapon 1 S&B	Battalion Defender	Shield	Sturdy	Tri-Stat Enchantment
Weapon 2 Destro	Battalion Defender	Shock Staff	Infused	Crusher Enchantment

Skills

• If you are using Mighty Chudan as Monster Set make sure to use Spell Symmetry instead of Balance to benefit from the cost reduction to use more chains.
• If you want you can also slot a Destruction Staff on the back bar in combination with Crushing Shock to interrupt enemies from far away.

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Endless Archive Setup for Dragonknight Tank in ESO

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

• Endless Archive gets progressively harder
• Playing as a duo is the best way to play the Endless Archive
• 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.

As a tank your main job in the Endless Archive is to keep the monsters away and position them correctly for your Damage Dealer. Additionally, you also want to make sure to have some extra heals that both benefit you and your second teammate.

Gear

In theory, you could actually use the same setup as in Blackrose Prison Arena above. However, Drake’s Rush works best with 4 players, therefore we are going to swap this set out with Claws of Yolnahkriin. This is simple to use since the effect activates automatically anyway. However, you could also go for a more advanced setup with Nazaray and Turning Tide like the main setup above to increase damage on bosses.

This setup here offers both good healing and resistance while also adding a bit of extra damage through a Weapon and Spell Damage boost depending on who you go in with.

Gear	Set	Weight	Trait	Enchantment
Chest	Claws of Yolnahkriin	Heavy	Reinforced	Tri Stat Enchantment
Belt	Claws of Yolnahkriin	Heavy	Sturdy	Health Enchantment
Shoes	Claws of Yolnahkriin	Heavy	Sturdy	Health Enchantment
Pants	Claws of Yolnahkriin	Heavy	Infused	Tri Stat Enchantment
Hands	Claws of Yolnahkriin	Heavy	Sturdy	Health Enchantment
Head	Mighty Chudan	Light	Infused	Tri Stat Enchantment
Shoulder	Mighty Chudan	Medium	Sturdy	Health Enchantment
Necklace	Battalion Defender	Jewelry	Infused	Reduce Prismatic Cost Enchant (Idenko Glyph)
Ring	Battalion Defender	Jewelry	Infused	Reduce Prismatic Cost Enchant (Idenko Glyph)
Ring	Battalion Defender	Jewelry	Infused	Bracing Enchant
Weapon 1 S&B	Battalion Defender	1H-Weap	Decisive	Weakening Enchantment
Weapon 1 S&B	Battalion Defender	Shield	Sturdy	Tri-Stat Enchantment
Weapon 2 Destro	Battalion Defender	Shock Staff	Infused	Crusher Enchantment

Skills

• If you are using Mighty Chudan as Monster Set make sure to use Spell Symmetry instead of Balance like the skills list below to benefit from the cost reduction to use more chains.
• If you want you can also slot a Frost Destruction Staff on the back bar in combination with Elemental Blockade to apply additional debuffs to enemies.

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Outfit Style Showcase of the Dragonknight Tank Build for ESO

Let us take a look at the outfit style of the Dragonknight Tank Build for ESO. You can find a few images here and an image of the outfit editor dye station below.

• Firedrake: Helmet
• Scalecaller: Pauldrons, Gauntlets, Greaves, Cuirass, Girdle, Sabatons, Sword, Shield
• Dyes: Patron’s Gold, Void Pitch

Slot	Name
Head	Firedrake Motif
Shoulder	Scalecaller Motif
Chest	Scalecaller Motif
Hands	Scalecaller Motif
Waist	Scalecaller Motif
Legs	Scalecaller Motif
Feet	Scalecaller Motif
Weapon & Shield	Scalecaller Motif
Dyes	Patron’s Gold, Void Pitch

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Update Log for the ESO DK Tank Build

11.08.2019 Updated Build for SCALEBREAKER DLC, Elsweyr Chapter for the Dragonknight Tank Build PvE.
20.10.2019 Updated the Build for the DRAGONHOLD DLC, Elsweyr Chapter.
20.02.2020 Updated the Build for the HARROWSTORM DLC, Greymoor Chapter.
07.05.2020 Updated the Build for the GREYMOOR CHAPTER.
20.08.2020 Updated the Build for the STONETHORN DLC, Greymoor Chapter.
29.10.2020 Updated the Build for the MARKARTH DLC, Greymoor Chapter.
03.03.2021 Updated the Build for the FLAMES OF AMBITION DLC, Blackwood Chapter.
26.05.2021 Updated the Build for the BLACKWOOD CHAPTER.
11.08.2021 Updated the Build for the WAKING FLAME DLC, Blackwood Chapter.
01.09.2021 Updated the Champion Points and Buff Food links, WAKING FLAME DLC, Blackwood Chapter.
18.10.2021 Updated the Build for the DEADLANDS DLC, Blackwood Chapter.
03.03.2022 Updated the Build for the ASCENDING TIDE DLC, High Isle Chapter.
11.05.2022 Updated the Build for the HIGH ISLE CHAPTER.
09.08.2022 Updated the Build for the LOST DEPTHS DLC, High Isle Chapter.
24.10.2022 Updated the Build for the FIRESONG DLC, High Isle Chapter.
09.03.2023 Updated the Build for the SCRIBES OF FATE DLC, Necrom Chapter.
30.05.2023 Updated the Build for the ESO NECROM CHAPTER.
25.10.2023 Updated the Build for Necrom Update 40.
06.03.2024 Updated the Build for the Scions of Ithelia DLC U41, Gold Road Chapter.

Tags: Health Dragonknight Tank, Dragonknight Tank Build, DK Tank Build PvE.

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