Introduction
The Skull Crusher Event, for those who don't know, is the Friday evening challenge to solo world bosses whilst your guildies look on. We start with easy base zone bosses then go on to the much tougher DLC bosses. I started designing this build before I had the idea for the Skull Crusher challenge, and this is it's 4th major iteration. There are two versions, a team build and a solo build, the reason being the Ring of Pale Order is only suitable for solo activity.
Below are the two Super Star Builds for Team and Solo play.
​
Team Play​
​
​
Solo Play
Build Discussion
This is the fourth version of this build. It is designed to be as tough as the previous one but to deal a bit more damage, about 20% up on version 3. In some dungeons, there are DPS challenges, and the previous version could fail in this area. Now with 20% more damage, it should no longer be such a concern.
​
Sets
​
The two main sets for this build to work are Test of Resolve from Sanity's Edge and Twice Born Star, which is crafted. For team play, a great monster set is Encratis's Behemoth from Black Drake Villa. All weights, enchants, etc., can be seen in the Superstar. The Ring of Pale Order takes the place of a monster set for solo work; this is phenomenally good at keeping you alive now the build is capping over 60K, and if you do dip a bit too low, Test of Resolve will recover you instantly.
The Maelstrom Greatsword for Merciless Charge (from the Maelstrom Arena) on the back bar; this gives a good boost to damage for 18 seconds and is a great gap closer.
Twice Born Star adds the ability to use two Mundus stones. I am using the Thief for extra crit chance and the Lady for extra resistance.
​​​
​
Ingredients:
To achieve the restore effect for all three resources, you must use one of the following combinations:
​
-
Bugloss + Columbine + Dragonthorn
-
Bugloss + Columbine + Mountain Flower
-
Columbine + Mountain Flower + Wormwood
Class Mastery
Buffed Stats, Food and Potions
I was aiming for around 30K magicka and 30K Health. My resistances needed to be 30K minimum. I sometimes see this rise to a max of 40K in combat metrics, but only the first 35K of resists are counted. As you can see, specific resistances are very high, and it helps that this is a Nord Character; Nords are very resistant to frost, especially.
All attributes go into Magicka, after all, this isn't a tank, we still want to do reasonable damage. If we take too long to kill a boss it may well reset!​​​​
​
​
-
Required Skills: Recipe Improvement 1 and Recipe Quality 2 (Legendary).
-
Ingredients:
-
1 Perfect Roe (Obtained rarely by skinning common fish).
-
1 Frost Mirriam (Often found through Provisioning hirelings or reward containers).
-
1 Red Meat.
-
1 Lemon.
-
​
A good alternative and significantly cheaper is Bewitched Sugar Skulls, and to be honest that's the one I use most of the time.
Champion Points
Use the champion points as shown in the Superstars or use this loadout which is a good all-round choice.
This set of CP is balanced for huge resistance, great shield longevity and good damage output. Feel free to mix and match depending on which area of the build you wish to improve or change.
.​​​​
Ability Bars
The video above is from the Skull Crusher Playlist, taking on every boss in Tamriel (that is possible to solo)
Rotation and how to play
Playing the Skull Crusher is really quite easy. Basically, you will utilise the heals and shield when needed, otherwise, concentrate on buffing the Engulfing Dragon Fire with:
Shatterspike Mantle
Incinerate
Igneous Weapons
Quick Cloak
Heart of Flame
Stampede
Refresh when necessary. I suggest getting the Fancy Action Bar Addon.
What is it like to play?
In a word, bloody great fun. There is something fantastic about going into almost any situation and, as long as you don't stand in very stupid places, you're never going to die. I often throw a taunt on to help out if we have no tank or not enough tanks (replace Molten Whip with the Undaunted Taunt Inner Rage). And, still do more damage than the average pug by far. It often feels like God Mode in a dungeon or trial. Yes, you have seen me die on this build, but only usually when I make a stupid mistake, or the tank loses taunt, and I'm hit with a 100K cleave.
Now, you can make this build even more defensive, but at the cost of damage; we want to maintain that 62K DPS so that it doesn't get boring or take so long on a boss it gives up and goes home for tea.
I love using this build, and you will often see me on it. I love everything about the new Pure DK and since the class masteries were added, it's now both tougher and does more damage; what's not to love?​​​​
​
Build Notes:
Version: 4
Date: July 2026
Race: Nord
Anything you can't see - it's there; check the Superstars screenshot carefully
Will there be updates? - Possibly but now the DK is finalised I doubt it for some time.
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.