This is my Main Dragonknight Tank Build 2021 (Flames of Ambition / Blackwood), for end game trials in the Elder Scrolls Online.
One of the major changes if not the biggest is the new Champion Point system! Racial Passives has changed as well and you can see the new ones here.
This looks a lot like what every other end-game tank runs, with small adjustments that suit my tanking style.
However, I have another Tank build I call the PROc Tank, which’s is a lot more fun to play and can Tank everything but Elite Guild Trials for Leaderboard.
If you want to be that kind of tank on the top of the leaderboard, this Dragonknight Tank build is what you need.
I also showed you in the video how this Dragonknight Tank build can be turned into a semi ok Stamina Damage Dealer build without having to reset attribute points, skill points, and champion points.
If you don’t have the add-on Dressingroom, I can highly recommend you get it. It makes switching gear and skills very easily.
ESO DragonKnight Tank Build 2021 buffed Character sheet.
Gear, Traits, Glyphs & Weight.
| Armor/Weapon | Set | Weight | Trait | Glyph |
| Head | Bloodspawn | Heavy | Sturdy | Magicka |
| Shoulders | Bloodspawn | Medium | Sturdy | Magicka |
| Chest | Yolnahkriin’s | Heavy | Sturdy | Max Health |
| Hands | Yolnahkriin’s | Heavy | Sturdy | Max Health |
| Waist | Yolnahkriin’s | Heavy | Sturdy | Max Health |
| Legs | Yolnahkriin’s | Heavy | Sturdy | Max Health |
| Feet | Yolnahkriin’s | Heavy | Sturdy | Max Health |
| Necklace | Ebon | Health | Reduce Prismatic Cost | |
| Ring 1 | Ebon | Health | Reduce Prismatic Cost | |
| Ring 2 | Ebon | Health | Reduce Block Cost | |
| Front Bar | Ebon 1H + Shield | Weakening | ||
| Back Bar | Ebon Ice staff | Chrusher |
ESO Set Bonuses.
Perfected Yolnahkriin’s Set:
2) Adds 1206 Maximum Health
3) Gain Minor Aegis at all times, reducing the damage taken from Dungeon, Trial, and Arena Monsters.
4) Adds 1096 Maximum Stamina
5) When you taunt an enemy, you give yourself and 11 group members Courage for 15 seconds, increasing your Weapon and Spell Damage by 215.
This effect can occur once every 8 seconds.
Yolnahkriin’s set can be farmed in Sunspire Trial, you get the perfected version on Veteran mode.
Perfected is not needed, but of cause nice to have that extra bit of health.
You get PUG (Pick Up Group) in Craglorn, just look for LFM for nSS (Looking For More for Sunspire) and join. Don’t use PUG’s for Veteranmode you will regret 99.9% of the time.
The Ebon Armor Set:
2) Adds 1206 Maximum Health
3) Adds 1206 Maximum Health
4) Adds 4% Healing Taken
5) Increase your Max Health by 1000 for you and up to 11 other group members within 28 meters of you.
The Ebon Armory set is still used by most if not all Trial Tanks in ESO.
Damage Dealers expect the Tank to give them that last 1k Max Health so they can minimax their stats for the highest possible damage output.
I hate the three floating red orbs around me, which might be the only reason I really dislike this set.
Ebon Armory Set can be farmed in Crypt of Hearts 4 person dungeon on both normal and veteran mode.
Bloodspawn monster set:
- Adds 129 Stamina Recovery
- When you take damage, you have a 6% chance to generate 13 Ultimate and increase your Physical and Spell Resistance by 3731 for 5 seconds.
This can occur once every 5 seconds.
There are a lot of really nice tanking monster sets in ESO, but Bloodspawn is still my favorite, and very useful for a Trial Tank build.
The 6% chance might sound low, but as a tank, you get hit all the time, and the set procs every 5 seconds more or less when you are in combat.
Pair this with the Nord’s Ultimate generation, and minor heroism buff you get an Ultimate making machine!
You can get the helmet in Spindleclutch 2 on veteran mode.
You get the shoulders in coffers you buy with undaunted keys.
Race, Mundus & Consumables.
Race: Nord
Nord is the preferred Tanking Class at the moment, with Argonian as a close second. 2 key factors are the reason for this, first of all, Physical Resistance is mighty important for a tank, and the Nord gets a very nice Physical Resistance buff.
Secondly, Tanks needs ultimate to use Aggressive Warhorn, but Dragonknight benefits twice over from Ultimate use, as it gives us resources back.
You can see all the racial passives here.
- Reveler:
Increase your experience gain with two-handed skill line by 15%
Increases the duration of any consumed drink by 15 minutes - Stalwart:
Increases your Max Stamina by 1500.
When you take damage, you gain 5 Ultimate.
This effect can occur once every 10s - Resist Frost:
Increases your Max Health by 1000
Cold Resistance by 2310. - Rugged:
Increases your Physical and Spell Resistance by 2600
Mundus: The Lord.
Physical Resistance is everything here at the beginning of 2021, that’s why we choose to be Nord race, why we set our champion points in Heavy Armor focus and why we choose the Lord Mundus stone bonus.
With buffs, we want to hit at least the cap of 34.500 Physical Resistance.
The Lord Mundus stone helps us do just that.
Food/Drink Buff:
When Tanking we need all 3 resources or if you do a stamina-only tanking build, we need at least Health and Stamina. I prefer Tri-stat food, as I can exchange Magicka for Stamina when using Igneous Shield. Having a larger Magicka Pool gives me the option to spam that and get my Stamina up. Check out this post with the 10 Best Food/Drink buffs in the Elder Scrolls Online 2021.
The best Tri-stat food available in ESO at the moment (January 2021) is the legendary food buff Bewitched Sugar Skulls.
This awesome buff food should be in your bag always, on every character you got, even if you are not a Dragonknight Tank Build you will love this in cyrodiil!
Alternative food buff:
The alternative to legendary food is almost as good.
Tri-stat Purple food has been around since the beginning of ESO, every tank used this until we got Bewitched Sugar Skulls we all used either Withered Tree Inn Venison Pot Roast or Longfin Pasty With Melon Sauce.
They both give the same stat boosts and cost the same to make.
Lasting for 2 hours giving 4462 Max Health and 4105 Max Stamina and Magicka.
Potions: Essence of Health.
This Tri-stat potion is your bread and butter in a Dragonknight Tank build.
We use Stamina the most but as I said earlier I use Magicka to regain Stamina, and now and then range taunt.
Besides giving back Health, Stamina, and Magicka it also gives you a 40% recovery boost to all the stats, which works well with the XYZ foods extra Health recovery, giving you passive healing around 750 per second.
Skills for this ESO DragonKnight Tank Build.
On the front bar I have Pierce Armor, Unrelenting Grib, Meditate, Circle of Protection, FLEXSPOT, and Aggressive War Horn as Ultimate.
On the back bar I have Blockade of Frost, Choking Talons, Green Dragonblood, Igneous Shield, Hardened Armor, and Standart of Might Ultimate.
Champion Points 2.0 – 300CP
| 40 Tireless Guardian 45 Fortification 15 Nimble Protector |
| 50 Steed’s Blessing (Slot) 50 Gilded Fingers |
| 10 Quick Recovery 40 Preparation 50 Endless Endurance (Slot) |
Champion Points 2.0 – 600CP
| 40 Tireless Guardian 45 Fortification 15 Nimble Protector 50 Boundless Vitality (Slot) 50 Rejuvenation (Slot) |
| 50 Steed’s Blessing (Slot) 50 Gilded Fingers 30 Fortune’s Favor 30 Wanderer 10 Steadfast Enchantment 30 Rationer (Slot) |
| 10 Quick Recovery 40 Preparation 50 Endless Endurance (Slot) 50 Duelist’s Rebuff (Slot) 40 Elemental Aegis 10 Hardy |
Champion Points 2.0 – 1200CP
| 40 Tireless Guardian 45 Fortification 15 Nimble Protector 50 Boundless Vitality (Slot) 50 Rejuvenation (Slot) 50 Ironclad (Slot) 40 Hero’s Vigor 45 Tumbling 15 Hasty |
| 50 Steed’s Blessing (Slot) 50 Gilded Fingers 50 Fortune’s Favor 30 Wanderer 10 Steadfast Enchantment 30 Rationer (Slot) 75 Liquid Efficiency (Slot) 50 Treasure Hunter (Slot) |
| 40 Quick Recovery 40 Preparation 50 Endless Endurance (Slot) 50 Duelist’s Rebuff (Slot) 40 Elemental Aegis 40 Hardy 40 Tireless Discipline 40 Eldritch Insight 10 Enduring Resolve (Slot) 50 Reinforced (Slot) |
ESO Dragonknight Tank Build Summary.
This DragonKnight Tank Build was made for end game trails.
The build hasn’t evolved much since the beginning of the Elder Scrolls Online, mainly because the job of a Tank has not changed significantly over the years.
your job as a Tank has always been to take a beating, keep the mobs of the squishy damage dealers, debuffing the boss, and buffing the group while praying that your healers will keep you alive.
Some find this boring, and it can be if you got a shitty group, but in a good group, you are the speartip rushing towards danger making sure everyone else is safe. You dictate the pace of the group and have a front seat view of the fight.
The downside to a tank build is, you have a hard time getting through solo content before bedtime. Tanks don’t do much damge and that’s why we need to have an of build we can use for solo’ing.
Below you will find the setup I mention in the video.
Remember to check out my other builds as well, like this Magicka Templar PvP Build.
Damage Dealer off build.
Being a Tank is great and all, but even a Dragonknight Tank Build got its limits.
If you want to make soloing a little faster (let’s face it, a lot faster), you need to have an off build you can switch into easily.
I really like this combination as it does decent damage and it has great sustainability.
I am still missing the Maul (which would be Best in Slot), but any 2-hander will do, as this is not a DPS build, but a way for a Tank build to do some damage while soloing.
| Armor/Weapon | Set | Weight | Trait | Glyph |
| Head | Stormfist | Heavy | Divine | Stamina |
| Shoulders | Stormfist | Light | Divine | Stamina |
| Chest | Unfathomable Darkness | Medium | Divine | Stamina |
| Hands | Unfathomable Darkness | Medium | Divine | Stamina |
| Waist | Unfathomable Darkness | Medium | Divine | Stamina |
| Legs | Unfathomable Darkness | Medium | Divine | Stamina |
| Feet | Unfathomable Darkness | Medium | Divine | Stamina |
| Necklace | Vicious Ophedian | Stamina | Weapon Damage | |
| Ring 1 | Vicious Ophedian | Stamina | Weapon Damage | |
| Ring 2 | Vicious Ophedian | Stamina | Weapon Damage | |
| Front Bar | 2-H Vicious Ophedian | Poison Glyph | ||
| Back Bar | Maelstrom Bow | Weapom & Spell power |
Set Bonusses:
Vicious Serpent set:
2) Adds 833 Weapon Critical
3) Gain Minor Slayer at all times, increasing your damage done to Dungeon, Trial, and Arena Monsters by 5%.
4) Adds 833 Weapon Critical
5) Adds 129 Weapon Damage and reduces the cost of your Stamina abilities by 8%.
When an enemy you have recently damaged dies, you restore 2454 Stamina and gain Major Expedition for 8 seconds, increasing your Movement Speed by 30%.
These effects can occur once every second.
Vicious Serpent set drops in the Craglorn Trials (Aetherian Archive, Hel Ra Citadel, and Sactium of Ophidia) you can get Legendary Jewelry on veteran mode on end bosses.
If you get to Craglorn you will see people shouting LFM nHR go sign up for that.
I recommend you don’t sign up as a Tank if you have never been there before even if you run a Dragonknight Tank Build already.
Unfathomable Darkness set:
2) Adds 804 Weapon Critical
3) Adds 1425 Physical Penetration
4) Adds 124 Weapon Damage
5) When you deal damage, you call a murder of crows around you for 12 seconds. Every 3 seconds a crow will be sent to peck the closest enemy within 12 meters of you, dealing 7320 Physical Damage.
This can occur once every 15 seconds.
Stormfist:
1) Adds 129 Stamina Recovery
2) When you deal damage, you have a 10% chance to create a thunder fist to crush the enemy, dealing 1650 Shock Damage every 1 second for 3 seconds to all enemies within 4 meters and a final 8470 Physical Damage when the fist closes.
This effect can occur once every 8 seconds.
The extra 129 Stamina recovery never hurts, but we run Stormfist for the 2 set bonus.
This sets Proc’s all the time and the shock damage bypasses all spell resistance!
You can get the helmet on Veteran Tempest Island 4 person dungeon.
Lava Foot Soup-and-Saltrice Food buff.
We have enough Maximum Health already, so when switching to our Damage Dealer sets we only need Maximum Stamina and stamina Recovery is always nice.
That’s why the Lava Foot Soup-and-Saltrice is a great choice for this off build.
This is ONLY if you need extra sustain, I personally don’t need that so I don’t switch food for soloing.
Remember this is a Dragonknight TANK build, and being able to do this much DPS without changing attribute points and champion points is a blessing and will make your life so much easier.
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