Replies: 511

FINal Words:

 

 

 

=========Disclamer=========

I’m going to, once again :p, rework this page to try to make it easier to the eye, less bla bla, more pew pew (with explanations at the end in separate section for the non initiated people) if you see things messed up in a weird order, it’s just me moving things around (and also updating the pictures since they have changed quite a bit since). I’m probably also be moving the “One Shot Wonder” build to a new topic since I’m not playing it anymore and for people to build on it in a separate discussion if anyone feels like it. Big reworks incoming.

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-= PLayer Versus Environment Build: The Devo DK =-

 

Credit: A lot of people, I’ve lately been discussing mostly with @anywaycry, other Hodor DKs but also watching/talking to the other DK theorycrafters such as @Cyhawk and @asneakybanana (who both made me question my previous build choices and improve). The build I’m posting here is the result of talking to those guys, reading what they post, trying new things and of course personal testing.

Difficulty/skill needed: This build requires practice in order to pull top DPS but will pull decent DPS as long as you understand the basics. I’d wager the difficulty is medium/easy for people who’ve been playing and testing stuff since Update 6 came out and medium/hard for people who have never played DK or haven’t played since Update 6 with (hopefully) a quick learning curve after reading this post :).

Gear dependence: VERY High. It’s all about the gear nowadays but luckly the current gear is easier to find than Martial Knowledge ;).

Upside:
– Top DPS, I initially thought that stamina Templar would continue to surpass the DK but this is untrue. Currently and as far as I can see from people around me, DK is still/once again the top DPS for fights > to 40s. Stamina Templars get close, sometimes equal, and they are still better for AOE DPS,  but magicka DK looks like it’s still DPS king :).

Downsides:

– Range, but this is easily circumvented and the situations where you can’t be close to your target are very rare (and if you’re pulling top DPS, your group will make sure you don’t have to go ranged ).

– Requires you to change skills mid raid to be most optimized. If you’re doing speed runs, you’ll need a gear switcher addon such as AlphaTools if you can get your hands on it.

 

 

Gear, Skills, Mundus and Champion Points

 

 

In order to optimize DPS, changes have to be made in the middle of runs depending on the content you’re facing. I’ll try my best to describe what bars to use depending on the encounters you might face.

This image is taken using Sun set armor + detection potion (see below) and with inner light activated. I’ll post MK picture soon :).

 

Gear:

Sun and Valkyn Gear (SVG):

Armor sets: 5 x Sun Silk + 2 x Cyrodill rings (with spell cost reduction enchant)+ 2 x Valkyn + 2 x Torug’s Pact

This is working wonders at the moment, the pieces in my case are as follows:

Following the correct recommendations of @BaronChb i use a poison enchant for my single DPS staff because as he said:

Poison enchant is used as an extra DoT as you get the burning proc from your skills already (Molten Whip is applying Burning State on the enemy and it does NOT stack with the flame enchant DoT)

 

The Chest trait is Nirn because of the high spell resistance it provides (superior to 15k so > 25%)

 

Non Valkyn Gear (NVG):

Armor sets: 5 x Sun Silk + 2 x Cyrodill + 2 x Adroitness + 2 x Torug’s Pact

This is the way to have 4 Spell damage gear + Sun Silk Set If you don’t have the Valkyn pieces, you should be using this. I’ve read somewhere in this forum that this set might be better for AOE but I have yet to test this. You can also use 2 WC pieces instead of adro pieces.

- = Mundus = –

For the Mundus I’m currently using  Apprentice stone. Testing suggest Apprentice + Nirn staf is currently the best in single target DPS for trials where the bosses have spell resistance. In instances where you need to mainly use AOE such as VDSA and when grinding, the Mage is a better choice since you’ll have more magicka and trashmobs usually have low resistances. Some testing suggests that sharpened might be better than Mage in VDSA but I haven’t tested this yet (nor plan to since I’m doing VDSA with my stamplar at the moment).

 

- = Skills = –

Note: I’m going to redo this section soon to make it clearer (what I use vs what still works ok). Also gonna update the pictures & skills since I’ve tweaked a couple of things and have integrated different things to the build.

SINGLE TARGET

Note: you should be using Flames of Oblivion instead of Sea of Flames if you’re gonna be doing trials. For VDA Sea is still worth it but when it comes to single target DPS, FOO does more :).

This IMO is the best setup at the moment(idea came from @asneakybanana), I use it for Single Target DPS. If you’re using this bar then you need to use Panacea of Detection potions. I usually use one when I engage and then I use them after swapping bar (makes it easier to use and you don’t stop mid rotation).

Bar 1: Molten Whip/Engulfing Flames / Burning Embers / Inner Light / Flames Of Oblivion/ Meteor

Bar 2: Molten armaments or Ingeous weapons (I’m using molten atm) / Eruption/ Elemental Ring / Inner Light / Flames Of Oblivion / Standard of Might

 

There are two ways to go with this one is SAFER, this is the setup you should be using if you’re using TRI-Stat-Potions.

If your raid is good, you should not need spell symmetry in your bar when killing any boss. That being said, when pugging, I recommend using something close to this since you’re likely to run out of magicka because no ele drain and low dps from other people (low DPS & people dying=> longer fights => magicka can go down to 0). You can also slot Spell Symmetry instead of Structured Entropy and use chains in your secondary bar (that way you have a versatile build and you don’t need to change skill bars). If you’re not using chains, as @anywaycry noted you can replace the spell sym with Elemental Drain and never be OOM :).

This is an example of a versatile build that you can use in some instances where you might need to DPS from range. Depending on your strategy, this could happen in some VDSA stages (like stage 9) or HRC (when the warrior moves away to destroy statue before jumping back), although it’s not necessary.

 

 Area of Effect DPS (AOE)

This first bar is the one I use when I don’t have to chain pull. Use Deep Breath at the beginning of the fight when most mobs are around, refresh the engulfing and Eruption DoTs and spam elemental ring. Finish singled out mobs with whip. You shouldn’t need Spell symmetry but I still slot it to quickly regen magicka (if it’s required) after I kill a wave of VDSA.

This second setup is for chain-pulling, you will need spell symmetry since it costs a lot of magicka to pull.

The aim here is to maximize AOE DPS, I’m slotting Mage Guild abilities in both bars (hence the meteor ultimate) to boost the magicka as high as possible. I use Elemental ring in both bars because this allows me, if I need to spell sym, to switch to the 2ndary bar and still have Ele ring. In this situation, 2 precise staffs are recommended, I also slot whip in case something needs killing, you can replace it with force pulse if you need (IMO crushing is a waste, it’s pulling less DPS and instead of interrupting you can just pull with chains).

Since this is a DPS build, I don’t equip skills like Hardened Armor, Igneous Shield or Green Dragon Blood, this build is meant to be used while grouping with other players including a Tank and a Healer, thus, it is not your role to do anything that doesn’t involve hurting the enemy.

 

Champion point Distribution:

• The Mage
  • 1x Spell Erosion
  • 1x Staff Expert (you can add a couple points here, could probably marginally increase DPS, especially when you got a lot of points in ELE expert and the % of increased damage gets reduced on each new point).
  • 1x Elf Born
  • All the rest in Elemental Expert.

• The Thief
  • 30x Magician
  • 30x Arcanist <= When u hit 30, move back to putting points in Magician.

• The Warrior
  • 30 Elemental Defender
  • 20 Hardy
  • 16 Thick Skinned

There are many things that hurt, that being said, putting 20 points in Elemental Defender solved my “OMG I got One Shot” problems on stage 3 of VDSA. As Renaissance pointed out to me, spell shield is useless since we have low spell resistance to begin with, same goes with Light Armor.

 

Rotation

Your main source of DPS with this build is Medium attacks and Molten Whip. The more hits you do, the higher your DPS will be. The buffs are there as a steady DPS complement.

Currently, my engage with banner is the following:

Detection potion => Bar #2 DOTs (Eruption, Ele Ring, Molten) => Banner (since no longer in Bar 1) => Bar 1 DoTs (engulfing =>MA=> burning) => Whip => MA =>Whip => MA.

After this, you keep refreshing Bar 1 Dots just after they run out, you refresh Bar 2 Dots after Eruption runs out, you use banner if you can have it before the end of fight, else you use meteor

 

Tactic/ Theory behind this:
You will recast Engulfing/Burning/Eruption AFTER the Dots are over and you will recast the other DOts (Entropy,Ele ring or what ever) only when Eruption is over. I’m still perfecting the rotation, experimenting with the best time to drop the banner as well as when to refresh the molten armaments. Currently, after 40% phase, I’m switching bar just to quickly refresh it (without weaving), this is producing good results. Note that the Banner is no longer on my Bar 1, I tested this today, and when banner is dropped, the ticks do more damage while the bar with molten whip is equiped + meteor is equipped (even meteor’s added magicka bonus is buffing the DoTs), if you switch back to bar #2 it will do less damage, hence, spend as much time as possible on bar 1 when the banner is down (while keeping DoTs up ofc).

 

 Potion

There is currently what seems to be a bug or at least incoherence linked to the spell crit potions, these don’t work well because, contrary to the tristat pots, you can only use them when your character isn’t doing any combat animation. As @benawaw89 pointed out to me, there is a potion that gives us what we need and doesn’t force us to stop any combat action before using it and that is the Panacea of Detection below:

 

This gives us everything we need, SPell Damage + Magicka + Magicka Regen (in any case we don’t need the Spell crit buff since it doesn’t stack with inner light/sea of flames). You can craft these with Lady Smock, Corn Flower and Wormwood.

Gear/Skill Switch During Trials

Veteran Dragon Star Arena:

AOE gear (if you got a DK tank, make him learn to pull and don’t use chains yourself except for some stages like stage 3).

Bosses to AOE: Stages 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8

Bosses to Single Target: 4, 6(depends of strat, you can nuke archer then AOE or just AOE all the way), 9(if you stay up, else go AOE), 10

 

Aether Archive:

From start to Boss #1: IF you skip adds then you can use NVG( Non valkyn gear) and single target bar. In any case this boss melts down you can keep the valkyn gear if you wish. After the first boss, you’ll equip the valkyn set for the rest of the event.

From Boss #1 to Boss #2: AOE setup for teleporting, if you horse jump make sure to change b to Single target bar of your choice, else keep AOE bar till you Teleport to the 2nd boss.

From Boss #2 to Boss #3: AOE setup for teleporting pads, make sure to add reflective scales and chains if you’re on the right side just to be safe. When your side is dead, don’t spam the armor/skill change, wait for the “out of combat” tooltip to appear and then hit the key to swap gear & weapons. You should reach the 3rd boss with First Single Target Setup. Here, to max DPS, wait 5s before dropping banner down and AOE after 17s of fight start.

Boss 4: Here we’re trying to maximize dmg output. Use Valkyn gear and use the Single Target bar of your choice (first one will be the best). Use molten armaments every time you use Erruption, after 40% switch to 2ndary, refresh it, then switch back to main bar and resume DPsing.

Hel Ra Citadel:.

Start to boss 1: Clear the trash with AOE setup, use valkyn gear. This fight is tricky, because it might be hard to switch to single target bars because of the continuous attacks. Usually, just before the Fire adds spawn, you have 1s to switch bars to single target with AlphaTools.

Here’s a DPS parse without touching the adds (I engaged after they died and didn’t use Elemental Ring to AOE).

Boss 1 to Boss 2:

Keep AOE setup until you reach boss 2. Left side should be easy you can switch to Single Target after the last adds wave. Right side is more tricky, we are still skipping mobs like before 1.6 so you should kill mobs before entering the last room and switching to single target DPS.

 

Bosses 2 to The Warrior:

Full AOE, tank and 1 more DPS should use chains, stack in the middle of the gargoyles, reck them, move to bottom of stairs, pull fire mages from the sides, nuke the adds while moving up the stairs and pulling ranged adds from the sides.

 

The Warrior:

Haven’t done Normal Mode in a long time, I guess Single Target #1 is fine, remember to have someone pulling ;).

 

Sanctum Ophidia:

Not disclosing Sanctum tactics since it’s pretty much the only real challenge the game has to offer. That being said, if you’re fighting more than 2 adds go AOE setup, else stay in Single target (so Serpent => Single target).

Updated: Manticora Kill, bumped once by green scalding rune.

 

Here’s a parse for the serpent, I was pulling around 17,5k DPS during my best try before Lag made tank loose aggro and kill me.

 

Here’s the bar setup I’m currently experimenting with for this fight, I’m still planing to try other things though. I also experimented with running the same bar as my single Target DPS #1 and removing molten armaments for purge.

Ideally, I’d like to keep the same bar as my single target #1 but it’s dangerous because it’s really really hard to lower my magicka. I experimented with starting fight at 10% magicka but this can leave me without magicka if ele drain and syphon is not being applied :). You can also switch entropy by spell symmetry if you need magicka but I advise you to learn to do this fight without it.

Questions & Answers

OMFG Why Silks of Sun? That’s like 5% Flame increase only!:

Yup, that’s exactly what I thought, then I saw DPS parses and was like wtf? Then I tested it and noticed a nice DPS increase way superior to 5%. So let’s stop talking about my life and let me tell you why Silk of Sun contrary to what I used to think, is actually OP: The 5% increase is a RAW increase. You’re not increasing your final amount of fire damage by 5%, you’re increasing your base fire damage by 5%, before the application of the Champion Points bonuses or any other passive/buff that is done to fire/elemental damage, this is why the FINAL increase is way more than 5% and the more points you get into Elemental Damage, the bigger the increase.

 

How to get the gear?:

You can buy the Sun Silks for 3-10k or loot them in Hel Ra Citadel, Cyrodill rings can be purchased for 256K AP in PVP elite gear vendors or bought from people, current prices hover around 80-120k gold for each ring but if you’re friendly with a PVPer you can get them very cheap :). Adroitness can be droped in Crypt of Hearts if I remember correctly, you can also buy pieces in trade guilds. The price depends on the item you’re aiming for. Torug pact can be crafted, your staff should be Torug. Regarding the Valkyn Scoria set pieces, the shoulder can be found by completing Undaunted Pledges and the head piece is dropped upon defeating the last boss of Veteran City of Ash dungeon.

 

How can I express gratitude for the build?

A comment is always nice or a thank you in game @Teh_Magnus :). If you’re rich & opulent and like the build, gold/legendary tempers donations are also welcomed in game to help support my testing, I’m looking towards buying an other set of Cyrodill’s light rings with are ~130k a pop and I’m totaly out of Dreugh Wax at the moment.

 

Why Devo DK?:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_QLzthSkfM  <= Enjoy this 80’s hit, everything will be clear afterwards.

 

-= Player versus PLayer Build – The One Shot Wonder=-

=========Latest Updates========

20/05/2015: Updated the item sets, the champion system and the potions to use

15/06/2015: Added PVP video and changed some stuff around.

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Disclamer: This is aimed to be a fun build, I’m currently PVPing a lot but I am no longer using this build/armor. Here’s a video of the latest things I’ve been doing in PVP

 

Introduction:

I found this build by “mistake”. I decided to go in PVP and test if the build we where using in PVE would be equally effective in PVP and then, I started one shoting people :p.

The damage output of this build is burst damage, I’ve dealt up to 30K damage in 1s to a target and fairly often I deal 24-26k damage in 1s to targets. This allows me to one shot weak targets such as archers and sorcs who don’t have their shield. It also melts well the defenses of templars.

Credit: The gear I’m using is the same @xMovingTarget is showing in his videos. Credit goes to him and @JLN1337 who where amongst the first to figure out in PTS what the best armor combinations where for magicka DK DPS in 1.6.
Difficulty/skill needed: – You’ll obliterate noobs and laugh like a mad man/gal thinking at them watching the damage report and the 30K damage you dealt with two skills, it will take more skill to beat good PVPers.

25850+4413+1106 = 31369 damage.

Gear dependence: VERY High
Upside:
– You can one shot people, especially those sneaky sneaky stamina bow nightbaldes that I personally despise. It’s a very good build to get AP in small/medium sized groups because your attacks are ranged and deal insane damage so you’ll get a good chunk of AP and XP when the person dies.

– The less HP the person has the more damage you will do to him.

– Good for skrimishes.

– Good vs nigtblades/bad sorcs/templars.

Downsides:
– Glass canon build. The fact you’re a DK helps you survive for a while if you’re in a sticky situation and allow for some friends to come and help you, but vs 4-5 melee enemies: you won’t last long.

– Difficult to win vs good sorcs and other good DKs (you can put the pain on DKs though if you play well).

 

Skills Used:

Skill Bars: Click ME

By following the link you will be able to see the skill bars & passives I choose to use in the build. Some of the skills are not slotted but this means they can be used in the build depending on the situation you’re facing. The second bar has an empty slot which I usually slot with extra survivability (hardened armor / immovable), or extra dipies (Evil hunter/self detonation magicka bomb), or utility (purge/caltrops/revealing ward)

The setup I commonly use is THIS ONE. I usually switch Eruption for Elemental Drain if I’m having magicka issues.

 

 

Equipment – Stats – Champion Points

 

 

Stats: I like to live dangerously so I usually go for 24k HP max on “staff” bar with VR10 epic tristat food. 1300 stamina minimum (1500 is better value but you’ll sacrifice some DPS if you go down that road). The higher you get your magicka, the better.

Armor:

Armor sets:

IMPORTANT READ: Here it is better to remove the Valkyn Scoria head and shoulders and replace them with wormcult Head/Shoulders or you get Adroitness hard, torug crafter shoulders, chest Martial Knowledge and Adroitness Belt. Valkyn will still work but it’s far from optimal to get the most out of the heavy attacks. According to @Anywaycry ‘s testing, Martial Knowledge is better than Sun set for staff attacks so no sun set for this build.

 

Regarding the staff, I was using sharpened trait but Nirn might be better.

Mundus: The apprentice (spell penetration). <= This is must have since most people will be using one or more Nirn pieces.

Champion Points

I need to update this tonight, the most important ones damage wise are:

The Apprentice:

Elemental Expert: 30 points

Elfborn: 1 points

Spell Erosion: 1 point

The Attronach:

Staff Expert: Max Points? Read below

I am unsure about this. In PVE, it’s better to max all in Elemental Expert since it buffs staff damage and the rest of the damage. In this particular case, we need max damage in staff attacks so I believe it is best to directly increase staff expert. I need to do more testing on this I.E: does 10% in Elemental damage augment the base staf damage as much as 10% in Staff expert? If this is indeed the case then points should be distributed equally amongst the two in order to optimize the damage increase. If someone takes the time to test this, I’m interested in the results ;).

The Lady:

Light Armor Focus: 16 points

Elemental Defender: 20 points

The Steed:

Spell Shield: 10 points <

This could also use a revamp.

The Lover and the Tower:

Here put points in Arcanist and Magician. Spell cost reduction is better than magicka regen so I put points in Magician in priority, it makes sense to put points in “The Lover” so Arcanist because of the “Synergizer” passive but last time we tested it, it was broken.

 

Damage Rotations

 

 

Range:

Molten Armaments => Entropy on any target => Elemental Drain on target if you have => Charge a full Heavy Attack => Flame Reach => Flame Reach => Flame Reach => Heavy Attack.

I cancel the Flame Reach animation since according to my testing the damage reaches the target sooner (back when I tested, damage constantly reached target 200-300 ms earlier than when you cancel the animation even though the recast time is the same.

Sometimes you don’t need more than a Heavy Attack

 

Mombo Combo:

This is a very nice combo when shock engaging someone you don’t like or to bring some pain to a small group of close by enemies.
Structured Entropy on any target => TAB to select a target => Self Magicka Detonation =>  Shooting Star Ultimate => Invasion => Talon => Molten Armaments => Heavy Attack on any survivor.

As soon as you finish putting talons, shooting star & self detonation damage should happen at the same time on the target and his close buddies. Usually this is insta-kills most targets and the survivors are just trying to get away, which allows you to charge that next Heavy attack which will deal insane damage if the guys are still low HP.

Theory behind this:

Why entropy on any target?

Well Ideally, you will put it on the target you want to kill, but that’s not the most important thing, the important thing is to get that extra 20% spell damage increase which will boost your heavy attack damage.

Molten Armaments? Isn’t it supposed to only do 40% more damage?

It is supposed to yes :D. I don’t know if it’s broken or not, haven’t crunched the numbers. My crit heavy attacks do between 18K and 24k damage. A flame reach crit will do aprox 5k damage and burning effect 500 damage which means you can do 30K damage in 1s when you cit both attacks.

Why slot Elemental Drain if you have sharpened + apprentice mundus?

Because you get Magicka back when you attack the target, it mainly helps keep good level of magicka which is your main source of Damage and survival. I don’t use it when I’m ok magicka wise and try to play without it.

Why Flame Reach and not Force Pulse or Crushing shock?

Flame Reach has a DoT and it is good for interrupting close threats or them templars with their jesus beam (plus if the guy gets knocked back by it, you can meteor/self magicka bomb => invasion => talons him and destroy him 8).

I don’t have Valkyn Scoria! I can’t use this build?

On the contrary, you can, and you will probably do even more damage than me with the correct armor sets. If I’m not mistaken, with adroitness neck + an other piece  (like belt of adroitness) + either chest, head or shoulders of martial knowledge (if you pick chest then you need either head or shoulder of Torug) you can have even higher spell damage.

I like scoria because it’s my ultimate “make them rage” provider, sometimes you’ll leave a target with very very low HP and the DoT of entropy or flame reach will make scoria proc and a meteor will rain down on the poor guy who thought he was safe because he got out of range. Note that this is my PVE build, the only thing I’ve changed is craft a Heavy Armor Torug pact chest to increase tankiness but I play without it mostly.

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Tips & Tricks:

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During Zerg Fights:

– Try to stay on the sides of the fight and foccus the archers/templars/ranged guys who are shotting at the middle of the zerg. You can one shot many of them.

– Don’t waste too much time on people with a lot of shields/armor etc, they are low threat to you and your alliance. If you do your combo and see the HP of the guy barely moves, pick an other target. You can kill that player eventually if you keep shotting him but it’s a waste of time (and other player will focus him anyways).

When defending/attacking walls:

– This is where your reflective scales shine, you can [Tab] focus someone, activate molten, entropy, then Heavy attack the archers or templars and kill many of them. If there’s a DK flapping wings, be sure to focus him & flap your own wings. You Heavy attack & flame reach will get reflected with extra damage, and then you’ll reflect it back. Since attacks can only be reflected twice, the poor DK will get your initial damage burst plus increased damage from the scales :D.

For most damage:

Use the same potions I describe above in the PVE section, that will also give you detection which will allow you to seek & destroy them ******* sneaky nightblades (say Hi from me).

When Ganking people / Small group fight:

Don’t stay in first line. Stay in Flame Reach/ HA distance and put some pain on people who get too close to the first laners. With other good PVPers you can 2vX or 3vX easily.

A good combo is to be hidden and fully charge an attack on someone on horse. Most of times he won’t get up.

• This topic was modified 2 days, 20 hours ago by  TehMagnus.