ESO Dragonknight Tank Guide

Table of Contents

ESO Dragonknight Tank Introduction

Welcome to our ESO Dragonknight Tank Guide. On this page we’ll be taking a deep dive into everything you need to know about the DK Tank, including the skills, passives, strengths and weaknesses.

The Dragonknight Tank is an all round good option for every situation, they are build amazingly well for Tanking in all situations and environments with many skills that have a use for a Tank. They are really good to play for beginners and still great all the way up to end game thanks to the buff they offer a group.

See more: Tank Class Overviews, Skills, Passives & Information

ESO Dragonknight Tank Class Skills and Passives

Ardent Flame

Dragonknight Standard
(Unnecessary)
This skill is not required for tanking but might be used in solo content.

Lava Whip
(Not Needed)

Burning Embers → Morph of Searing Strike
(Situational)
This can be used to proc Encratis’s Behemoth or Elemental Catalyst when you already have a DK in group using Engulfing Flames since this skill is about 1k Magicka cheaper to cast.

Venomous Claw→ Morph of Searing Strike
(Unnecessary)
A cheap damage skill for doing damage as an Off Tank or Tank/DD Hybrid Tank build. This skill is used in the Tribute Tank Build for solo content.

Engulfing Flames → Morph of Fiery Breath
(Situational)
If you are in a group with no other DK and people in your group are using Flame Staves/Skills/Enchants, then this is a vital skill that must be used.
To get the max 6% Flame Damage buff you need 4000 Spell Damage and 4000 Weapon Damage. When you use Igneous Weapons, have Minor Sorcery from a Templar, Major/Minor Courage from SPC/Yolnahkriin and the War Horn resource buff you should be somewhere near 6%. Even if you can’t hit 6% even a 3% gain is useful as it’s extra DPS for your group.

Noxious Breath → Morph of Fiery Breath
(Situational)
This causes Area of Effect Major Breach which can be handy for add pulls and dungeons. You can use this to debuff a whole stack of enemies very quickly so you should consider using it when you are stacking enemies using chains and range taunt and dealing with multiple enemies.

Unrelenting Grip → Morph of Fiery Grip
(Vital)
A very important ability for stacking enemies and one of the few Magicka pull abilities in the game. This will chain any none elite target to you but it will not work on a target that was recently crowd controlled or any Boss or Elite target, it will refund the cost if this is the case so can be used as a free speed boost if you use it on those targets. This ability can be combined with Talons for great crowd control, it’s possible to chain and the immediately talons an enemy. Unrelenting Grip also applies a 15 second taunt, this can only be applied to enemies that are not already taunted, this makes the skill even better since you can pull enemies and they remain aggroed to you.

Cauterize → Morph of Inferno
(Optional)
You might possibly use this for a certain Dungeon builds if you run in a group without a Healer and want an effortless heal that can hit you or people in your group.

Flames of Oblivion → Morph of Inferno
(Unnecessary)
Scales with your highest offensive stat and it’s a decent damage skill for Off Tank or Tank/DD Hybrid builds.

Combustion
(Vital)
This is a vital sustain passive for the Dragonknight Tank. When you cast Unrelenting Grip, it can proc Burning and this passive to give you 1000 Magicka back. If you are using a Charged One-Handed Weapon with a Poison Glyph it can also proc the Poisoned effect and this passive again to give you 1000 Stamina.

Warmth
(Optional)

Searing Heat
(Optional)

World in Ruin
(Optional)

None of these three passives are really vital for Tanking. If you occasionally play solo or as a DD or Tank/Hybrid then these passives are mostly damage dealer passives, or if you use Engulfing Flames you will need the passives.

Draconic Power

Dragon Leap
(Unnecessary)
This skill is not required for tanking but might be used in PvP or Solo content.

Spiked Armor
(Optional)
This is your main source of Major Resolve to increase your resistances until you are able to get the Mages Guild ability Balance. Balance would be a better option but does require Mages Guild 9 to unlock, this will be fine as a placeholder until then. Hardened Armor is the better Tank morph as it provides a damage shield, and Volatile Armor offers a little damage. When using Harmony Jewellery and if you don’t need the extra sustain from Balance then Hardened Armor is really useful.

Choking Talons → Morph of Dark Talons
(Vital)
When using this crowd control ability, you hold up to 6 enemies near you rooted to the ground. It works well in combination with Unrelenting Grip where you pull enemies to you then root with Talons making it easier for your allies to use area damage to kill grouped up enemies. This does not root elite or boss targets, but it will still cause the Minor Maim even if it doesn’t root which means this is a good ability to do area of effect Minor Maim if it is needed.

Coagulating Blood → Morph of Dragon Blood
(Vital)
This is the main burst heal for a Dragonknight Tank. This morph is better for people with higher stats and anyone who heals themselves often when above 30% remaining Health. It gives a base heal plus additional healing based on how much health you have missing. If you setup with high health and low max stats then Green Dragon Blood will heal for more from around 50% and under Max Health. But this morph outperforms the other morph quite considerably for beginner Tanks who use this often and anyone who has 25k+ Stamina. The fact you get a base heal regardless of your current Health makes this a strong option.

Green Dragon Blood → Morph of Dragon Blood
(Situational)
This is another burst heal that can be used by a Dragonknight Tank. It’s an emergency heal and not intended to be spammed or used at high health, and it scales based on the amount of Health you have missing. To get the most benefit from this you want to have as much Max Health as possible, generally you should have over 40k and then you need to use this skill when you are as low health as possible, ideally at 30% and lower. When you use it when you are higher health it will heal very little, so it performs most effectively at lower Health, try to always use it when under 30% Max Health or less. The additional Minor Vitality can be the reason why you might use this instead of the other morph but ideally you should have both morphs levelled then switch according to the content you’re doing.

Protective Plate → Morph of Protective Scale
(Situational)
A very important skill for very certain situations. When you are taking heavy projectile damage you can cast this to reduce the incoming damage by 50%. It also removes and makes you immune to snares and immobilisation which again is useful for certain situations. A few good places to use this include Blackrose Prison, vHoF after Spider Boss to get through the beams, vCR when Tanking Z’Maja heavy attack and vMoL when dealing with Dark Barrage from Rakkhat.

Deep Breath → Morph of Inhale
(Situational)
Not a commonly used ability as there are not many situations where it is necessary, but when you have multiple targets that channel an ability that needs to be interrupted then this is a great skill as you can use this to cause an area of effect interrupt. A few places where this is useful include vKA adds after the 2nd Boss, vHoF adds, vSS Hardmode Last Boss Off Tank and Blackrose Prison.

Draw Essence → Morph of Inhale
(Unnecessary)
This is an AoE damage, heal and Magicka return skill which is not essential but if can be really nice for healing in add pulls or for a Hybrid build.

Iron Skin
(Vital)
Very important passive for a Tank as it adds additional Block Mitigation so you can block more damage.

Burning Heart
(Vital)
Another important passive for Tanking, healing received is vital for survivability and this makes healing intensive situations easier on a DK.

Elder Dragon
(Vital)
The Health Recovery is a minor boost which will give you a little extra healing every 2 seconds and will stack with other sources of Health Recovery such as the Bewitched Sugar Skulls food, the Steed Mundus and Major Fortitude from Health Potions.

Scaled Armor
(Vital)
Adds 2.5% mitigation with additional Resistances and makes it easier for a DK to reach the resistance cap of 33k.

Earthern Heart

Magma Shell → Morph of Magma Armor
(Optional)
This is an Ultimate ability that you might use for very high damage or emergency situations especially if you are a newer Tank. There are some situations with a lot of damage and this basically makes you unkillable for 12 seconds. There are also good ways to use this to skip mechanics or to burn bosses by using it and avoiding dying as a Tank. Overall it’s useful to have this available but you wont always use it.

Stone Giant → Morph of Stonefist
(Vital)
A very important ability. For any group content you should attempt to maintain this as much as you physically can. It adds approximately 2-4k DPS per Damage Dealer to a target. Effectively if you can maintain this 100% in a 12-person group with 8 damage dealers this would increase your group damage by around 24-32k+ DPS. The way this works is you have to cast this 3 times on a target at the start to reach the max of 3x Stagger stacks which lasts for 6 seconds. Then you need to recast it to refresh the timer every 5 seconds, if you don’t, the stagger runs out and you need to restart the stacks by casting 3 times. The first stomp/cast will make you drop block so make sure not to do this during a heavy attack or big mechanic. The first stomp is also an Area of Effect so you can hit multiple nearby targets with at least 1x stagger which would increase damage in add pulls with a lot of stacked targets even if you only cast it once. Learn more about this skill in the video tutorial on The Tank Club YouTube.

Igneous Weapons → Morph of Molten Weapons
(Situational)
You can use this when running in beginner groups to make sure they are getting Major Sorcery/Brutality as sometimes in these groups they don’t use the correct potions. It can also be used for groups who use different potions such as Ultimate regeneration potions to unlock other benefits but still need a source of Major Sorcery. If you are trying to get a 6% Engulfing Flames setup, then you would ideally use this also. It’s something you need to communicate with your group leader to see if it’s needed in your particular group.

Fragmented Shield → Morph of Obsidian Shield
(Optional)
This ability gives a much smaller shield than Igneous Shield but you are compensated with double the time that your Major Mending lasts. Typically its not worth using it over the other morph.

Igneous Shield → Morph of Obsidian Shield
(Vital)
A very strong multi use ability. It gives you a damage shield which scales off your Max Health so you can get quite a large shield. It also gives you Major Mending which increased your Healing so it’s good to cast this before casting a healing ability so you will heal for more. It also gives a group shield which is smaller than the shield you get for yourself but can be helpful to use in group content to increase survivability.

Petrify
(Not Needed)
This is typically only used in PvP situations.

Cinder Storm → Morph of Ash Cloud
(Optional)
If you want to give yourself a long duration heal over time, you could place this under yourself, so you spend less Magicka on burst heals from Dragon Blood. This skill can be used at the start of combat by being thrown in front of the enemy to snare them, slowing them down by 70% which gives you more time to close the gap, gain aggro of the enemies and stack them well for your damage dealers to kill them. This skill can also be used to proc certain gear sets such as Olorime, Symphony of Blade, Sentinel of Rkugamz.

Eternal Mountain
(Vital)
Very important passive to increase the duration of your Igneous Shield and Stone Giant most importantly but adds duration to other Earthen Heart abilities also.

Battle Roar
(Vital)
This is the difference maker between Tank classes. You will almost always use an Aggressive Warhorn as your Ultimate at a cost of 250 Ultimate which means you will also gain a huge amount of resources when you do so. This makes the DK sustain very easy and the ideal class for most people as a Tank.

Mountain’s Blessing
(Vital)
This is a group buff that will benefit Medium Armor Damage Dealers, so it is important to have this in these group. This is also a way to build extra Ultimate by casting an ability once every 6 seconds for the 3 Ultimate, generally you will cast Igneous Shield and Stone Giant a lot for this to return the Ultimate as much as possible.

Helping Hands
(Vital)
You can gain Stamina while blocking thanks to this passive by casting Igneous Shield frequently or even by spamming Cinder Storm for virtually free. This is why Balance is a good ability to use and also high Magicka Recovery so you can cast Igneous Shield as much as possible then use it to sacrifice Magicka for Stamina and doing this also maintains the Ultimate generation from Mountain’s Blessing passive and all of this can be done without ever dropping block.

ESO Dragonknight Tank Overview

Dragonknights (aka DKs) are the most commonly used Tanks in the Elder Scrolls Online. DK’s are typically the best and easiest Tank class to play, and they are the absolute best class for beginner Tanks.

The reason for this is the DK offer group buffs from their skills and passives and the majority of these things are not usually effective to use on another role meaning the DK Tank always has a place in the mass majority of groups, even when other Dragonknights are present in the group.

Another main reasons for this is due to the self-sustain available to them via their class passives Battle Roar and Helping Hands, which allows DKs to generate Stamina resources while maintaining block, one of the biggest things that Tanks struggle with is sustain but this is easy to deal with for DKs.

DKs have some excellent healing skills; a burst heal that scales with Max Health with Coagulating Blood or Green Dragon Blood and a heal over time Cinder Storm. They also have a group shield called Igneous Shield which scales with Max Health, this also restores Stamina while blocking via the Help Hands Passive and gives the caster Major Mending which boosts the healing they can do. Overall this makes self-survival really good for DK Tanks.

The DK has access to 3 unique group damage buffs with Minor Brutality, Stagger and Engulfing Flames. Stagger places a debuff on enemies via the Stone Giant skill which causes the target to take increased damage. Engulfing Flames can make an enemy take up to 6% more Flame Damage, its better maintained by a DK Magicka Damage Dealer, but of you are the only DK in a group you would likely need to use it. DK’s also have a group buff called Minor Brutality which is often applied by casting Igneous Shield and increases your groups Weapon Damage. Stagger is more common in the later stages of the end game due to its difficulty to maintain and because it’s very resource intensive but is a requirement by most groups in harder content and trials.

DK’s can offer groups Major Brutality and Major Sorcery with Igneous Weapons, which is a great skill for all groups since players in lower tier groups are unlikely to be consistently using strong potions, and in higher tier groups it gives them the option to run alternative potions such as Ultimate gaining potions to boost damage even further.

A few things to remember is that if you are trying to optimise a group, the DK Tank should only be considered if the person playing the DK Tank is maintaining  Stagger with Stone Giant if no other DK is doing it, maintaining Engulfing Flames if they are the only DK in group, providing Minor Brutality in a Medium Armor group or if the person using the DK is doing so because they need help managing their sustain. If none of these things are applicable, then you should consider a more beneficial class for optimising your group.

ESO Dragonknight Tank Strengths, Weaknesses & Group Buffs

Strengths

  • Great sustain – able to gain Stamina while blocking.
  • Great for all players of all experience levels.
  • Good self-healing.
  • 3 Unique group buffs and other group utility.
  • Strong Tank class with additional mitigation and resistances.

Weaknesses

  • Stone Giant drops block on initial cast and is hard to sustain and manage.
  • Sustaining can be difficult when using Stone Giant.
  • Magicka abilities are all really high cost.
  • Not very useful to a group if Stone Giant or Engulfing Flames are not used.

Group Buffs

ESO Dragonknight Tank Conclusion

Overall, the DK is an extremely strong class to play as a Tank. If you are new to Tanking then a DK would be the best option by far, purely for the sustain benefits and with how good they are at self healing and staying alive.

They are top tier for Main Tank in Trials because even when you have a DK Damage Dealer, a DK Tank is still useful. In 4-person content due their superior crowd control they are often used as well.

ESO Dragonknight Tank Videos