Uploaded August 2019 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago

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This is a Magicka Dragonknight PVE build and Iron Atronach Parse for the Scalebreaker patch.


There have been loads of changes across the board for combat in ESO. I would recommend you to read the relevant patch notes.

Skills that are useful for Magicka DPS that previously were not:
- Degeneration
- Destructive Reach
- Scalding Rune
- Consuming Trap (Single Target) or Soul Splitting Trap (Cleave)
- Mystic Orb

I am using the Max Magicka/Magicka Regen food, with 64 points into Magicka for all Magicka Setups in these rotations. This is simply for comparison purposes in this test environment.

Gear used here:
5x Mother's Sorrow Body, 5x Siroria front-barred, 2x Zaan. (See build screenshot for full details).

Other gear that is perfectly suitable for different situations include:
False God, Spell Strategist, Burning Spellweave, Elemental Succession

The Magicka Dragonknight is in pretty good shape for Scalebreaker. It possesses some really strong, long, class DOT abilities, a very potent spammable and passives which really help it to be unique and take advantage. Let me explain. The Combustion passive, which increases the damage of Burning and Poisoned status effects by 50% (which now scales with Spell Damage, Spell Crit and Max Magicka as of Patch 5.0.5), and allows you to regen 500 stamina every 2 seconds. This means alchemical poisons are very effective on a Magicka DK relative to other Magicka classes. The Magicka DK has many more sources of Burning than others, which means that naturally there are more Burning procs overwriting each other. As a result, the Burning from a MagDK's Flame enchant is worth proportionally less, compared to other classes. A MagDK spends a reasonable amount of time on the front bar, due to having a well-utilized spammable, so there are fairly good chances of proccing the poison. Finally, it also allows you to bash weave more, but that is the least important part.

CMX Parse - https://i.imgur.com/suASIU4.png
CMX Build Screenshot (Skillbars, Gear, CPs) - https://i.imgur.com/8a12Suf.png


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Rotation

This rotation is a dynamic one. Here we will use a pure spammable in Molten Whip. This rotation feels like MagDK rotations pre-Scalebreaker in this sense. I have slotted all of the relevant Ardent Flame abilities on my front bar rather than backbar to make some use of the Seething Fury passive. Unlike me, you could slot Meteor front bar and have Standard of Might backbar for the Mages Guild passives on front.

The DOTs that I have included into my bars are Burning Embers, Engulfing Flames, Flames of Oblivion, Destructive Reach, Degeneration, Eruption, Soul Trap, Unstable Wall and Barbed Trap. I have made an assumption here, that Engulfing Flames, which gives 10% additional fire damage to affected enemies, must be slotted for group benefit. Otherwise, I would likely use Scalding Rune instead, which will likely give you more DPS overall. For many of the other Magicka Classes, I have opted to use hybrid spammables, but since the MagDK has many longer duration DOTs (class DOTs of duration 18, 15, 12 and 12 seconds), we have far more time to use a spammable, and considering Molten Whip is such a good one, this is the logical choice.

Regarding priorities, as usual, Unstable Wall is the top priority due to the vMA Staff bonus. There isn't really any priority for the rest of the DOTs, though to make things a bit easier I have paired Engulfing Flames and Burning Embers together since they are 12-second DOTs. Overwriting DOTs early to keep better uptimes is encouraged if there are some obvious clashes, but you'll have to be wary that if you overdo this, it means fewer casts of the whip.

You may have noticed that I have made use of Bash weaving on many of my skills. Since 5.0.10, bashes also scale with Max Magicka and Spell Damage on Magicka characters, so it is well worth it if you're comfortable adding the extra layer of complexity and resource management. It is also now more relevant because if you were to use the new Martial Knowledge Set, then having less than 50% Stamina is a requirement for activating that set.

For fights where there is a reasonable amount of movement, I would recommend swapping out Eruption for Scalding Rune, IF Minor Brutality for the group is not dependant on you. If you need a shield, then you could really swap out any of the DOTs with justification. I would probably pick Engulfing Flames if there is already a source of it, otherwise Destructive Reach.


Proposed Static Rotation:

Start:
Flames of Oblivion x 3 (for Seething Fury)

Barbed Trap - Wall - Eruption - Whip -
Embers - Engulfing - Reach - Soul Trap - Degeneration - Wall - Whip - Whip -
Embers - Engufling - Reach - Soul Trap - Degeneration - Flames of Oblivion

Fit in Standard of Might whenever convenient.

Thanks for reading. If there's anything you want to say, I'd be happy to hear it in the comments!


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Track: Defqwop - Into the Ether
Link: youtu.be/hlNAg5TDfTc