If you like to play the game "Rambo style" this build is for you. With Clockwork city, this build just got an amazing buff. You can now tank in Light Amour (with all the benefits of spell penetration) and still be at Armour Cap - while maintaining a VERY healthy amount of magicka regen. As an added bonus, the equipment required for this build is dirt cheap and easy to acquire.
Update 2017-10-26: Updated for Clockwork.
Gear
- 5 x Fortified Brass (2x Heavy Body Pieces, 1 x Light Body, Weapon + Shield)
- 5 x Bahrahas Curse (3x Jewels, 2 x Body pieces Light)
- 2 x Grothgar (2x Light or heavy - in which case, craft light Fortified Brass)
- Sword and Shield on both bars
- Infused on Chest, Helmet and Legs with Prismatic Enchants
- Nirnhoned on Shields with Prismatic Enchants
- Sturdy on small pieces with Health enchants
- Infused on the Swords with Crusher Enchant on front bar and Fire enchant on back bar
- Healthy on the Jewelry (or adjust stats as needed if you can only find Arcane rings - see below)
- For jewelry: use Magic Recovery enchants until you can hit 2000 recovery, then top up the rest with block cost reduction
Get to 2H/5L or 5L/1M/1H - depending on your comfort level for stats (you will be slightly under armour cap in 5L/1L/1H). Craft Fortified Brass as needed
Mundus / Food
- The Atronach
- Health + Magicka Recovery Orsinum Food
Race
- Dunmer preferred, but can work with any. Altmer probably very good too
- Vampirism is awesome for this build. Feed before you enter City of Ash. When not in City of Ash - stay at Stage 4
CHAMPION POINTS
Blue:
- Thaumaturge: 75 (to unlock passive)
- Elemental Expert: 56
- Blessed: 56
- Elfborn: 23
- Spell Penetration: 30
Red:
- Elemental Defender: 49
- Hardy: 49
- Thick Skinned: 49
- Ironclad: 61
- Light Armour Focus: 32
Green:
- Shadow Ward: 95
- Tumbling: 45
- Arcanist: 100
Target Stats (with full CP)
- Get to around 30K health
- When buffed with Volatile Armour, you should be around armour cap (~33K spell/phys resist)
- Rest in Magicka, get somewhere just above 20K
- You need to hit just around 2000 Magicka Recovery. If you feel comfortable with less, switch enchantments on Jewels out with either spell damage or block cost reduction
Bar Setup
Boss Bar
- Piece Armor - Switch with Inner Rage if you need range taunts
- Burning Embers - DOT and self heal, spam this when low on health.
- Engulfing Flames - DOT
- Inner Light / Igneous Shield
- Volatile Armour - procs our sets and helps us be tanky
- Shooting Star (for the regen) or War horn
Trash Bar
- Burning Talons - DOT. Better than a taunt for trash, just keep them rooted and inside your kill radius (when you play the build, you will know what I mean)
- Draw Essence - your self heal for trash. Gets more powerful the more monsters are around. Practically free to cast. Spam this and don't wait for the explosion if you are low on health.
- Unrelenting Group - batch them and burn them!
- Ash Cloud - DOT and opener for trash pulls
- Flames of Oblivion - DOT
- Dragonknight Standard - DOT
How to play This build
This build is based on very strong synergies between dragonknight DOT (which we have a lot of) and the gear. You will be pleased to know that:
- Burning Talon, Cinder Storm, Engulfing Flames, Flames of Oblivion, Burning Embers and Thunderbug can all trigger Grothdar and Baharas
- The DOT tick from Bahrahas curse can proc Grothdar (and vice versa)
- Getting hit while buffed with Volatile Armour can set off the chain reaction too
- For tricky trash (Big xikvin guys in vWGT, Atronach in vICP) apply the occasional taunt on priority targets
With this in mind, here is how you fight trash mobs
- Buff up with Volatile Armour and Flames of Oblivion
- Place Cinder Storm on mobs and charge into the AoE area
- Weaken them with Engulfing Flames as you get close enough
- Generously apply and reapply Burning Talons and Chains to bunch up range attackers and keep everything nicely bunched up
- Use Draw Essence as needed to heal (you do NOT need a healer for dungeon trash anymore)
- Watch the fireworks as you proc flames, lightning and deadric runes non stop
- Kill off any stragglers with Burning Embers
For questing, just run straight towards your quest marker, ignoring all monsters that might chase you - turn around when you have 10-20 mobs and apply the above.
For bosses:
- Maintain Volatile Armor and Flames of Oblivion at all times
- Use Burning Embers for self heals
- Make sure Bahrahas is up at all times for that constant 1K heal - note that you can proc Bahrahas with a shield bash
- When the window of opportunity is there, switch to trash bar and apply all DOT (do not weave, as you need to get back to your boss bar fast)
- If needed, replace Inner Light with Igneous shield on front bar for Stamina Sustain when blocking (you have enough Magicka regen to spam it)
A big part of playing this build is knowing when to block and when an igneous shield is enough. You are a armour cap or close - so most of the time, you should be able to face tank most blows. Only block CC / knockback effects - for the rest, pop a shield or just heal through it.
