Welcome to my Magicka Dragonknight ( MagDK ) PvP Build for the Blackwood patch!
This build utilizes the return of all sets to Cyrodiil to use some old-reliables as well some new concepts to get an overwhelming amount of damage and healing power, allowing you to win very difficult fights and kill even the tankiest enemies.
If you’re looking to be able to burst down enemy players and whole groups while keeping mobile despite the usual Magicka Dragonknight weaknesses and still have more than enough survivability to dominate Cyrodiil and other PvP activities, you’ve come to the right place!
The optimal race for this build is Breton. This race helps you sustain magicka skills better than any other and increases your spell resistance and your magicka pool as well.
Other good alternatives for races would be Dark Elf, Argonian, Khajiit and High Elf.
The mundus stone we are using on this build is The Atronach. This mundus will help us increase our Magicka Recovery and let us afford more Spell Damage Jewelry glyphs, which are very important part of both our damage and healing power.
We play without Vampirism or Lycanthropy on this build as we don’t benefit too much from either and we wish to avoid their penalties. It’s possible to play this build as either of them, however it is not recommended.
Note: For the full explanation on why we use all these skills and how to utilize them effectively, make sure to check out the build video (coming soon).
Unlock all the passives except Dexterity, Improved Sneak and Agility, these are optional and not very relevant.
Unlock all the passives except Slaughter and Controlled Fury, these are optional and not relevant.
Unlock all the passives except Tristat Focus. It’s important to not unlock this passive.
Unlock only Combat Medic
Unlock only Medicinal Use
Nirnhoned
Flame Damage Sharpened Shock DamageBloodspawn – This set is a perfect match for a Magicka Dragonknight, and its effects match our playstyle with this build perfectly. When taking damage, this set gives us additional Physical & Spell Resistance which we definitely need on a build that utilizes multiple pieces of light armor; and generates a sizable amount of Ultimate for us, which we can use to either pressure or kill an enemy, heal ourselves, or regain our resources thanks to the Battleroar DK passive.
Burning Spellweave – This is one of the most reliable high-value Spell Damage centered sets in the whole game. It fits the Magicka Dragonknight class perfectly as it requires consistent Flame damage to be dealt to enemies in order for this set to function – which we can easily do using our class skills – and grants us a high amount of Spell Damage with an impressive uptime.
Mechanical Acuity – We use this set to guarantee Critical Strikes whenever we desire, provided it isn’t on cooldown. This effect is useful to keep your healing going, to pressure enemies using your Damage-over-Time effects, and most importantly – To burst down tanky enemy players. We use this set on our back bar to control its uptime; Whenever we are facing a difficult opponent or a tanky individual, we are able to overwhelm them with damage by applying our DoTs to them, swapping our bars and Light Attacking to activate this set, then swapping bar to the front again and using our Leap & Molten Whip combo to deal an enormous burst that can kill even super powerful enemies.
Armor of the Trainee – We use one piece of this set to help increase our Max Health pool further to provide some additional survivability since we have one extra armor slot available when using all the other sets included in this build.
Ring of the Wild Hunt – We are utilizing the Wild Hunt ring on this build to increase our mobility. With Malacath being nerfed this patch and no longer being very relevant, most Mythic items this patch are not must-have, and instead are more up to personal playstyle. For a “fast & furious” build such as this one with powerful damage yet not overwhelmingly strong defenses, speed is important to get out of sticky situation and kite out enemy groups. This is where Wild Hunt comes in, by providing us a significant additional speed.
If you don’t have access to Mythic items, you can replace this item with an additional piece of Armor of the Trainee.
This would reduce your speed and mobility in fights, but increase your Max Magicka as a relevant alternative.
Dual Wield – We use Dual Wield on our front bar this patch as it increases our offensive burst more than any other weapon, even destruction staff. With Light and Heavy Attacks now scaling off your highest stats – making even DW attacks scale off our very high spell damage, there is no reason for us not to use this weapon type and make full benefit of its excellent passives. You may replace this weapon with a Flame Staff if you’re more familiar with using it, however this will reduce your overall damage during your burst moments.
Ice Staff – We benefit a lot from utilizing Block effectively on our Magicka Dragonknight, but we now lack access to the Elemental Drain skill which we definitely need to increase our penetration and sustain. To gain both effective blocking and access to Elemental Drain using the same weapon type, we use Ice Staff on the back bar.
Light & Heavy Armor – We are using mainly light & heavy armor pieces on this build as those benefit us the most. Light Armor pieces increase our damage and sustain, but increase the cost of block and damage we take from Martial Attacks. Heavy Armor increases our defenses, but also the damage we take from Magical attacks. Due to this, a balance of 3 of each benefits us the most, and we top it off with one Medium armor piece to benefit more from the Undaunted passives.
Sturdy & Impen – The Sturdy trait helps us block more efficiently, which is important on our build which utilizes block a lot on the Ice Staff (back) bar. The Impen trait is required, although it’s less cost-effective, since we no longer use the Resilience CP passive this patch (unlike our previous Magicka Dragonknight build) and our Critical Resistance is naturally low.
We use Clockwork Citrus Fillet as this one food gives us all: Max Health, Health Recovery, Max Magicka and Magicka Recovery. A budget option to replace this expensive food would be Witchmother’s Potent Brew, which gives us slightly less stats, yet is fairly similar.
Spell Power Potions (made with Lady’s Smock, Corn Flower & Water Hyacinth) are the main potions we use on this build, as we do not have another source for Major Sorcery on this build. This buff is very valuable for our damage, so whenever we go offensive to try and kill enemies it’s important to have a potion buff active – especially against tanky enemies.
We also use Tri-Stat Potions (made with Bugloss, Columbine and Mountain Flower) to help us heal and sustain both our Magicka pool and our Stamina pool. We use this potion mainly when we are on the defense and need additional resources to survive the group of enemies that is pressuring us.
Craft (0)
Warfare (520)
Fitness (542)The Craft Champion Points as a whole do not effect combat much, and so they are completely up to your playstyle!
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My personal recommendations and preferences (by order of importance):
Passive Stars
Active Stars
Always start an engagement by applying Elemental Drain to the enemy player, and making sure you have a spell power potion effect active. Afterwards, you must cast 3 Ardent Flame abilities (Engulfing Flames, Cauterize or Burning Embers) to fully buff your Molten Whip’s Seething Fury effect. I prefer to start with Burning Embers before Engulfing flames as it increases the heal value I’ll be getting from Burning Embers upon recasting the skill in the next rotation.
After stacking your Seething Fury effect three times, you should bar-swap and Light Attack an enemy (or bash one) to activate the Mechanical Acuity effect on your backbar. This is also a good opportunity to cast Race Against Time to further increase your damage. Once the set effect is active, quickly swap to your front bar again.
After de-buffing your enemy and buffing yourself, you must cast Fossilize to stun your target, then quickly use your ultimate Ferocious Leap to hit them with a huge force, then finish them off with a fully buffed Molten whip. It’s important to try and weave light attacks between all of your offensive skills, if possible. Note that if you managed to execute the entire sequence while the effect of Mechanical Acuity (Unerring Vision) lasts, your enemy should be dead more often than not. Even if you only managed to get through a part of this rotation while under the Unerring Vision effect, your burst should take a significant part of your enemy’s health.
If this rotation is not enough to kill your target, you must keep applying pressure to them using your DoTs (Burning Embers, Engulfing Flames, and Burning effect from your enchantment and flame skills), and repeat the burst multiple times until your enemy is dead. If your Ultimate ability is not ready, you can skip it in the rotation and go straight to Molten Whip.
When going defensive, you want to mitigate as much damage as possible using Block on your Ice Staff (back) bar. In addition you must kite around objects until enemies don’t have a direct line-of-sight to you, which you can do effectively using the speed from Race Against Time, and then heal up. The main heal on this build is Coagulating Blood which will heal up most of your missing health, however it’s important to keep up Cauterize as it helps you stay alive by healing you every 5 seconds, and is much more affordable than Coagulating Blood.
After you are healed up, you need to re-cast Volatile Armor to regain your Major Resolve buff for additional damage mitigation. After doing so, you might want to use Deep Thoughts (or Meditate) to regenerate some of your lost resources.
When the enemies approach you and you’re ending your defensive rotation and are preparing to go offensive, it’s important to transition between the two by using Burning Embers on your front bar, as this is a damage skill, but will also give you a significant amount of health upon recast if it’s been applied to a target for more than a couple of seconds. Cauterize is also a healing ability that can help you survive, while it buffs your Molten Whip with Seething fury thus helping you transition into offense.
That’s about all the information you need to set up this Magicka Dragonknight build and play it in PvP! I hope you found this build setup useful and will enjoy playing it in game!
If you have any questions, suggestions, or feedback, please feel free to reach out to me either via my discord server, or by tagging me on Twitter.
You can also find my other socials down below to get in touch with me live on my streams or see more of my content!
Good luck burning-up Cyrodiil!
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