Solo MagDK Build

Put simply this is my "go to" build that I run as my main, and it has cleared all content to date without issue.

This character has been set to run as a solo build for the purposes of this design, and full details are below and shown in this video.

Updated: December 2021

Character setup

A brief overview of the important setup for this build, changes could be made here if you wish to go more aggressive with the Race or Mundus but this will be at the expense of the sustain and the build is designed for ease of use in all content as a Solo character so there have been some small sacrifices made to damage output in order to gain in other areas.

Race

Breton - for this build I have gone with a Breton for the excellent sustain it provides, we are not looking for pure damage output and this adds some balance to the build.

Attributes

All 64 points in to Magicka

Mundus

Atronach - used to help boost our sustain on this build, as with our Race then this choice is about giving balance to the build instead of going for a pure damage output build if we were making a damage dealer.

Curse

This build is not running as either Vampire or Werewolf. (In the video I am as a Werewolf however without transforming then there are no disadvantages to being a werewolf so this is just an unused part of the character I used to make this build on)

Gear

Gear options

The above represents the ideal for the build with minimal difficulty in gaining the items - the armour can be gained easily: 

- Iceheart - you will need to run Direfrost Keep on veteran for the headpiece to drop from the last boss
- Burning Spellweave - from running City of Ash 1 or 2 on normal without the need to do it on veteran difficulty.
- Mother's Sorrow - available from Deshaan (the jewlry will drop easily from the Dolmens there for example) 

You can also easily buy Mother's Sorrow items from Guild Traders and it is worth considering your intentions - either hunting around for the best traits on the staffs (you would have to go for Precise on the front bar not Nirnhoned) or creating your own (provided you have levelled your crafting skills to be able to do so)

Priorities

The arrangement of these two sets can be switched - running Mother's Sorrow on the body instead if preferred, as we are not running any unique weapons or mythic items that need factoring in. For this reason I would suggest gaining Burning Spellweave first by running City of Ash 1 a few times, as once you have either body pieces (more likely) or the jewlry and weapons (rarer drops) then you will be able to go and gain the Mother's Sorrow items, and then finally your monster set as this is the only part that requires you to run a veteran dungeon.

You can also mix and match the 5-piece set items in any combination you see fit HOWEVER you need to keep head and shoulders clear so that you can wear the Iceheart monster set.

And we want the Head and Shoulders to be one medium and one heavy with every other armour piece being Light - this is because we make the most of the Undaunted skill line passives, which boost our health based on how many types of armour we wear - by wearing all 3 we gain the max benefit possible and as a solo build this is a helpful benefit to have.

Alternate sets

Medusa could be alternative option if run as weapon and jewlry with either Burning Spellweave or Mother's Sorrow on the body pieces. This gives extra crit damage without it needing to be fire damage focused, however for this build I designed it around the fire theme of the DragonKnight hence using Burning Spellweave.

Mythic items

We are not running any Mythic items on this build, you could for self healing by wearing the Ring of The Pale Order if you like, and would need to switch out a Iceheart item (head or shoulders) to be a piece of Mother's Sorrow and run only one Iceheart piece. (For example wear the head of Iceheart, Shoulders of Mother's Sorrow and then replace a ring with the Pale Order instead)

Food

Ideal but expensive to maintain: Clockwork Citrus Fillet (or Bewitched Sugar Skulls)

Second choice: Witchmother's Potent Brew (or Mistal Banana Bunny Hash)

A range of other food options are available, and you are welcome to try something different - just be sure to focus on having something that gives health and magicka. 

If you go for something that gives more then stamina is a nice extra (Withered Tree Inn Venison Pot Roast for example) for any running around and blocking, although health recovery could be useful if facing a tough challenge. Magicka recovery is not hugely necessary given the Breton status but you could if you feel it lacking when you play.

Potions

Everybody tends to find their own personal preferences when it comes to these, but a staple is:

Essence of Spell Critical (Lady's Smock, Water Hyacinth and EITHER Columbine OR Bugloss)

Essentially though you could run any that provide magicka and recovery, and could do perfectly fine also running:

Essence of Health (Bugloss, Columbine and EITHER Mountain Flower OR Lady's Smock)

The standard potions you pick up are not useful enough long term so you want to level up your alchemy crafting to make your own strong potions using the ingredients mentioned above, or buy them in guild traders.

Skills

What to use and when to use them...

The skills below are designed to work together and keep you covered for both protection and damage output at the same time as this is a solo build so you need to be self-reliant.
 

Front Bar

Molten Whip - Burning Embers - Engulfing Flames - Flames of Oblivion - Unrelenting Grip - Standard of Might

Back Bar

Unstable Wall of Elements - Elemental Drain - Igneous Weapons - Igneous Shield - Coagulating Blood - Ferocious Leap

"Rotation" and reasons for the skills:

1) Igneous Weapons + Elemental Drain = both of these can be used at the start of the fight without alarming the enemies, therefore pre-buffing you and debuffing them before even a shot is fired

2) Igneous Shield and Coagulating Blood = this provides a shield to you and improves your health recovery for the next 20 seconds

3) Unstable Wall of Elements = slamming this down provides a nice wall of fire that will do damage to enemies in front of you

4) Bar swap on to your front bar, use each skill once starting with Flames of Oblivion and then ending with Molten Whip

5) Back to your back bar to maintain those shields, buffs and debuffs, before coming back to your front bar again and going through the attacks one by one same order as before

6) If your ultimate is ready then you can use whichever you feel appropriate based on the situation - remember that if you use Standard of Might you need to then stay in that area to gain the benefit, if you are likely going to need to move maybe use Ferocious Leap instead to land where you need to be and then have the freedom to move again if you need it.

7) If you take damage and need to heal, head to your back bar and use Igneous Shield and then Coagulating Blood as a 1-2 combo as the pops a shield but also increases the effectiveness of the heal if the shield is already on

8) Igneous Weapons has a long effective time so it is not needed to be pressed as often as the other skills

9) If you have just used Ferocious Leap then you will have a large damage shield on and will not need to use the shield and heal right away, so will do best to squeeze extra attacks in instead

10) The reason we use the front bar skills as described (Flames of Oblivion first and Molten Whip last) is because this enables the maximum up time of the first skill, followed by 3 uses of different skills (2 of which leave damage over time) and all 3 of them are from the Ardent Flame skill line. This means that when you then finish with Molten Whip that it has built up charge to now be twice as powerful as it was before. If you test the animation you will see a normal whip action looks simply like the character whipping an enemy, where as the improved version after using Engulfing Flames, Burning Embers and Unrelenting Grip will see your character jump in the air and spin around whilst whipping the enemy, and this demonstrates them doing the enhanced damage of an extra 100% output. Simple to get right, and very effective - which is the whole point of the build.

Alternative skills:

- Volatile Armour or Harness Magicka could be used instead of Igneous Shield

- Shooting Star or Soul Assault could be used as an ultimate if desired

- Remember this is for running as a pure solo and if you intend to run in a group then check out the adaptations made to this build in the MagDK Damage Dealer build - you can run the majority of what you see here, with some minor tweaks to skills and armour

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