The Goal of this Build is to provide strong DPS on a Dragonknight while using shock and fire damage and Heavy Attacks with a Lightning Staff. I’ve tried several builds that use lightning staff heavy attacks on a DK, and while they are very survivable, sustainable and very easy to play, the single target DPS mostly suffered and I’ve never managed to get past the 30k sustained sinlge target DPS parse (selfbuffed). This build does exactly that while using only AoE skills, and in the right hands and raid setup, it can surpass 40k Single target DPS easily. I’ve had a breeze in vDSA and every vet trial with this. This build is flexible to the extent that you can do both a Melee or Ranged Version, depending on what you are assigned to within your group or what the dungeon or fight requires you to do. For solo play, the build requires minor tweaks, but I added a vMA build for people who'd like to get their safe weekly on the DK and easy mode flawless conqueror.

Another thing that this build can contribute to groups is the great uptime on burning and concussion, the new replacement for infallible aether: I get around 1 proc per 9 seconds, which means that this lightning build contributes to everyones dps, by means of 8% trough minor vulnerability and by 10% for everyone using the exploiter passive.



Selfbuffed Stats:



Gear:

To understand the nature of heavy attacks, it is important to know that the Flat Damage Buffs of the Undaunted Infiltrator vMA Lightning Staff buff every tick of channelled heavy attacks, and the undaunted infiltrator buff remains on for 10 seconds when switching the bar, which is the difference between this build and most other Heavy Attack based DPS builds. What is even more important: it enables us to use Illambris to get the DPS up by even more. So in order to keep the Buff up, all you need to do is to cast a Magicka based skill on your back every 10 seconds. Most builds swap bars every few seconds anyway, so this is easy to achieve. I use Burning Spellweave now, as Aether got nerfed to not buff every tick of channeled heavy Attacks anymore and is thus not optimal. The 600 Spell damage from BSW are awesome for heavy attacks too and the Damage is similar as aether, as they use a higher conversion rate for Max Magicka to Spell damage than skills and buff everything you do.

DPS Setup:



vMA Setup:



Heres a full flawless run with the old version of this Build, but it works exactly as in the video with the above setup:
https://youtu.be/FjQPiA5XENk


Replacements for the gear:

Undaunted infiltrator:

This is a must have. Undaunted unweaver is possible as well, but gives less magicka than undaunted infiltrator and requires you to use a stamina based ability every ten seconds.

Burning Spellweave:

This is a must have as well for the DPS setup, only replacement with a dps loss is elegance, which is (in my opinion) better for vMA.

Illambris:

As of update 13, we will need to adjust builds based on proc sets due to the loss of their synergy with warhorn and crit in general, so you can experiment with the different monster sets. Due to the heavy attack synergy, you can use maw of the infernal for fun, because let's face it, it looks cool, but doesn't provide that strong dps. Grothdarr is awesome in melee range, but illambris synergizes with the shock and fire while doing strong dps, so it's still ideal.

The Ranged Bars



Main Bar (Lightning Staff): Dampen Magic (FLEX SPOT), Destructive Clench, Elemental Blockade, Stalwart Guard, Inner Light, Shooting Star/Thunderous Rage/Standard of Might

Back Bar (Dual Wield): Molten Armaments, Engulfing Flames, Eruption, Stalwart Guard, Inner Light, Shooting Star



Melee Bars



Main Bar (Lightning Staff): Dampen Magic (FLEX SPOT), Burning Embers, Elemental Blockade, Stalwart Guard, Inner Light, Shooting Star/Thunderous Rage

Back Bar (Dual Wield): Molten Armaments, Engulfing Flames, Eruption, Stalwart Guard, Inner Light, Shooting Star

vMoL Chainer Bars



Main Bar (Lightning Staff): Dampen Magic (FLEX SPOT), Burning Embers, Elemental Blockade, Deep Breath, Inner Light, Shooting Star/Thunderous rage

Back Bar (Dual Wield): Molten Armaments, Engulfing Flames, Eruption, Unrelentung Grip, Inner Light, Shooting Star

Solo/vMA Bars



Main Bar (vMA Lightning Staff): Dampen Magic (FLEX SPOT), Coagulating Blood, Elemental Blockade, Dragonscales, Inner Light, Shooting Star/Thunderous Rage

Back Bar (vMA Restoration Staff): Healing Ward, Molten Armaments, Rapid Regenaration, Eruption, Inner Light, Shooting Star





You can put all you want on the flex spots, I like to have a shield ready on the main bar and chains on the back bar to help chain in adds, but you could also put mages guild skills there to get additional max magicka. I use Thunderous Rage, as it is the most powerful DPS-Ultimate right now and got buffed by ~2.5%. I mostly weave in light DW attacks right before going back to th front bar to activate your SD/Crusher glyphs and thus empower the first 1 1/2 heavy attacks and blockade with it.

Lets go through possible skills you could put on the flex spots:

Dampen Magic: Strong shield, your emergency button i case you don't trust your group enough to go without shield.

Harness Magicka: Weaker than Dampen Magic, but helpful when you get a lot of elemental damage in.

Unrelenting Grip: In any case you have a non-dk tank (without swarmmother) or just have a lot of ranged trash to chain in.

Elemental Drain: In case the healer doesn't run it, you can put this on your front bar.

Scalding rune: Procs Illambris' fire version, but is not as good as eruption.

Dragonscales: Cool when you have a lot of ranged things that can't all be taunted by your tank.



CP Setup





Rotation:

The Rotation is as easy as effective: Find someone to guard, Magicka DDs like the free minor force.

Molten Armaments > Bar Swap > Eruption (18s, and 10s UI buff) > Bar swap > Elemental Blockade > Fully charged heavy attacks > Burning Embers (in Melee Range) > Two fully charged heavy attacks (fit exactly to the duration of Blockade) > Bar swap > Engulfing flames > Bar swap > Elemental Blockade > Fully charged heavy attacks > Burning Embers (in Melee Range)> Two fully charged heavy attacks > start at Eruption.

Due to the 39s duration of Molten Armaments, you only need to recast it every two full rotation cycles.

Throw in your Ultimate (Meteor/Thunderous Rage/Standard of Might) between the second and third heavy attack when it is ready.

Eruption, meteor, Burning Embers and engulfing flames proc the fire version of Illambris, while your heavies, thunderous rage and blockade proc the lightning version, so you get a great uptime on both, especially with a few adds to bosses around.

Target skeleton parses (alone, selfbuffed):
Robust skeleton:

Normal skeleton:


A few things on those parses:

1. I couldnt use stalwart guard because i was alone on the PTS. Add 6.5% DPS on top.

2. I dont have the 5% dual wield damage passive unlocked. Add 5% on the back bar for it.

3. I'm using precise swords, so you lose ~7% DPS while on the back bar.


Old pug trial parses (will post new & better ones with next update):
Warrior in vHRC:

Mage in vAA:


Keep in mind that every single ability and attack except burning embers is full aoe here, and that i suck at remembering rotations and screwed them up quite often.

An issue that thus build has is blockcasting. E.g. In vHRC, I usually have 39k dps until the starburst phase kicks in, and you can't blockcast heavy attacks, so the dmg drops significantly when you can't channel. Same holds for the ground atronach in vAA.

If you want to try it out, I recommend farming the lamia boss with the pet snake (slikhlenia or something) in arx corinium for sweetsong, a unique precise sword of the undaunted infiltrator, then farming the first boss for legs and a unique necklace and then going for a ring of the set in chests.



Big shoutout to @alanarre for the very informative Shockknight Build Thread and @unthought for the idea with the undaunted infiltrator set! Also thanks to @Paulington for letting me use the Hodor Manor for my DPS-Tests.



The build is still in development, so any advice in how to improve it further (while staying outside the box please, I know what is BiS on mag dks) is welcome! I will update it continously.