110K+ Subclassed Dragon Knight Build
for ESO Update 48 (no mythic required!)
by Mathius Mordred
Introduction
You know, when I started back with this game seriously about 2 years ago, I struggled to get 25K out of this Dragon Knight. It's my first ever character created way back in closed beta. I knew for certain that others had gotten significantly more than I, so I must have been doing something wrong. Oh boy, was I ever! Now, two years later, I understand this build far better, and with subclassing, even a Nord Dragon Knight can reach well over 100K. Not only that, but I've reached 110K, and if the skills didn't constantly misfire it would be 5-10K above that.
Why Nord? Well, he's always been a Nord, I also use the same character as my tank, my werewolf tank and my werewolf PvP weapon. For pure DD, the number one choice would be Dark Elf, and if I were to race change, then I'd expect to see around 115K as a Dark Elf. That's not going to happen, though, but I would recommend that you, the reader, do use a Dark Elf with this build. Second to that would be the Kajiit, but don't let it bother you too much. The Nord DK is very tough, and this helps survival in tougher content with very few heals.
Below is the Super Stars build for this character, it contains most things you need to actually copy the build and have some fun.
Build Discussion
Sets
The two main sets for this build to work are Slivers of the Null Arca from Lucent Citadel and Tide-Born, which is a crafted set. Essential is a monster set and the best I have found is Zaan, farmed from Scalecaller Peak on veteran difficulty. Use 1 heavy, 1 light and 5 medium for the Undaunted Mettle bonus for using the three weights. The Spectral Cloak set from the daggers found in Black Rose Prison is a must for a good 6% increase in all damage whilst Blade Cloak is running (ie all the time). You can also use the Maelstrom Greatsword on the back bar, but I find its operation clunky, and it doesn't fit so well with the timings of this rotation.
Divines and stamina enchants on all. Jewellery should be bloodthirsty with a multi-effect enchantment for weapon and spell damage and a small stamina recovery component.
The Tide-born daggers are charged with a flame enchantment and precise with a poison enchantment
The BlackRose daggers are both infused with a weapon damage enchantment.
Mundus is The Thief for critical chance.
Slivers of the Null Arca
Slivers of the Null Arca is a medium armour set in the Elder Scrolls Online that can be obtained in Lucent Citadel. It is part of the Gold Road DLC pack. Every 4 seconds, this set fires a crystal at the enemy that does physical damage. Note: The perfected version of this set will add a little more weapon and spell damage (129) and should therefore see a slight increase in damage, I would estimate about 2-3K.
Tide-Born
This is a Crafted set, so you can craft it in any weight you like. It adds a massive 12 % direct damage to monsters. This build is all about direct damage.
Zaan
Zaan is an armour set in the Elder Scrolls Online that can be obtained in Scalecaller Peak. It is part of the Dragon Bones DLC pack. When you deal Critical Damage with a Light or Heavy Attack, you have a 33% chance to tether to your enemy for 10 seconds as long as you remain within 8 meters of them. Enemies touching the tether take 145 Flame damage every 1 second, increasing by 100% per tick and are afflicted with the Burning status effect. This effect can occur once every 20 seconds and scales off the higher of your Weapon or Spell Damage.
Black Rose Dagger (Spectral Cloak)
Activating Blade Cloak while in combat allows you to gain Spectral Cloak whenever Blade Cloak deals damage for 2 seconds, reducing your damage taken and increasing your damage done by 6%. Use Deadly Cloak for better timings with the rotation.
Alternative Sets to replace Null Arca
Trial Sets: Mora's Scribe Thesis (Lucent Citadel), Ansuls (Sanity's Edge)
Non-Trial Sets: Deadly Strike, which you can buy from Guild traders or from Bruma in Cyrodiil with AP, alternatively Order's Wrath would be good, and it's craftable.
Subclassing
This build uses the DK skill line Ardent Flame, Assasination from the Nightblade and Storm Calling from the Sorcerer. These three skill lines give the most useful passives for this build.
These passives are:
All of these passives are very useful at buffing weapon damage, recovery, and critical hits. I have linked each image to a website that will tell you more about these passives, click on the image to learn more.
110K + parse Run on Combat Metrics
Remember, a Dark Elf would get around 5K more damage from this build at least. Maelstrom would add another 3K if you can get it to work.
Buffed Stats, Food and Potions
Aim for around 35K stamina, more if possible. I use Lava Foot Soup because it is the largest buff to stamina and offers the highest possible stamina regeneration. Potions need to include Major brutality and stamina recovery, so weapon power pots are best. Prophecy and Savagery come from Flames of Oblivion. Here is a typical mid-parse stat shot. Expect the weapon damage to rise to 6500 when the target is low on health due to items such as Bloodthirsty on the jewellery.
Ingredients: You can craft this potion using a few different combinations of ingredients. The primary ingredients for the damage and critical buffs are Blessed Thistle and Dragonthorn.
Combination 1: Dragonthorn, Blessed Thistle, and Water Hyacinth.
Combination 2: Dragonthorn, Blessed Thistle, and Wormwood.
Sustain: The potion also provides an instant restore and a bonus to stamina recovery through Major Endurance.
Ingredients:
Flour (1)
Potato (1)
Saltrice (1)
Scrib Jelly (1)
Required skills:
Recipe Improvement (rank 1)
Alternatives:
Braised Rabbit- Stamina and Health
Dubious Camoran Throne - Health/Stam, Stam Regen
Artaeum Takeaway Broth -basically dubious camoran but with health recovery and expensive!
Champion Points
The Trial dummy has permanent off-balance, and this is often the case in a well-optimised trial group for the bosses, so it would be crazy not to pick up Exploiter for a massive 10% increase in damage. Master at Arms and Deadly aim are obvious for our single target and direct damage abilities, leaving Wrathful Strikes to boost our weapon and spell damage. In the Fitness tree Celerity gives you more mobility, and rejuvenation could be swapped out as we have no issues sustaining stamina. The rest are pretty much as you see fit.
Rotation and how to play, and a full 110K parse video
This is a rotation that you will have to take time learning, but once the muscle memory kicks in it will be very easy. Hey, look, I'm 61, and whilst I've been gaming for over 50 years, I am still an old git, so if I can do it, you youngsters definitely can! Watch the video below where I explain how to carry out the rotation.
For the dummy and for trial bosses, drop the Standard of Might at the start. From then on, our ultimate is going to be Harvest Soul, which is fully charged by the time we have refreshed our back bar skills. We enter the execute phase at approximately 25% boss health by switching from our main Rapid Strikes Spammable to Killer's Blade, which has an epic execute dealing up to 400% more damage to enemies under 50% health. The sweet spot is 25%, at which point we are dealing more damage with Killer's blade than with Rapid Strikes.
Below is the parse video with spoken instructions.
Satisfaction
Personally, I find this build extremely satisfying to use. I love my arcanist, but it's too clinical, buff, point laser, and that's it. Whilst this dual-wielding Dragon Knight doesn't have the legs of an arcanist, it's not a million miles behind, and it is more like real combat to me, far more to do, far more gutteral and vicious to use with slashing blades and intense flames, there's nothing like it for feeling powerful. The execute with Killer's Blade is incredible, and I often see shots of over 100K finishing off mini bosses and heavier mobs in one shot, it's very addictive.
Build Notes:
Version: (dunno, but at least 10.0)
Date: November 2025
Race: This is a Nord, but see text: Dark Elf hits hardest, next is Khajiit
Anything you can't see - it's there, check the Superstars screenshot carefully
Is this the best DK build in the game? - Nope, it's my DK build, it's pretty good, but there will be improvements to make, perfected gear would help, maybe a different rotation, possibly a different set, but for now, this is as good as I can do.
Will there be updates? - I hope so, I use this all the time as my main character, so I'm constantly trying new ideas. If I find something better, this build guild will be updated.
Finally, I hope you find this build guide useful and enjoyable. I had a lot of fun putting it together and even more fun hacking and slashing.
