This build is based on the fact that a lot people don't have access to trial gear or vMSA/vDSA weapons. Most people also don't have a lot of weapon damage potions, so you have a buff move. I wanted to make an easy to make build, that doesn't require you to have the BiS gear, while still doing decent damage. Of course, because it isn't BiS, you will be pulling less numbers, but it's enough to hold you over until you get those sets. This is a very detailed guide divided into sections, so go down to what you need. Likewise, this is a wall of text, but it is a good introduction into DPS in Elder Scrolls Online for a stamina character (as a lot of your moves will be the same weapon/fighter guild skills). If you have any questions, feel free to ask them in the comments.


TRAITS/ENCHANTS/FOOD:
All armor should be divines with max stamina enchant. Food should be max stamina/max health. Weapon traits should be all sharpened with weapon damage enchant (note, on your OFFHAND dagger, use lower armor value). Jewelry should be max weapon damage enchant with robust (ideal) or healthy.

You will be using a heavy chest piece (chest/legs if you are afraid bulk may be an issue or want to play it safer with a lower DPS value (not too much)) and medium armor for the rest of your gear.


GEAR:
Ideal--- All divine on armor, robust on jewlery, weapons with sharpened
2pc Velidreth (Cradle of Shadows-helm/Undaunted Chests-shoulder). Great burst set for stamina characters
5pc Twice Born Star (crafted-9)/Night Mother's Gaze (crafted-6). Depending on what you have access to
3pc Agility -rings/necklace- (bought/vaults in Cyrodiil/last boss in a group dungeon). easy to get and good
2pc Leki's Focus -Dual Weild- (bought/PvP). Leki's for the 2pc weapon damage
1pc Bow of whatever you want, not very good options for a stand-alone bow outside of vMSA

If you don't have access to any of those sets, here's an alternate version with mainly crafted (2 trait) sets

Next Best--- All divine on armor, healthy/robust on jewelry, weapons with sharpened
4pc Ashen Grip -body- (crafted-2). A little max health/weapon damage/crit chance
3pc Night's Silence -body- (crafted-2). A little max stamina/stam recovery/crit chance
1pc Night's Silence -your bow- (crafted-2). ^^
1pc Night's Silence -one dagger- (crafted-2). ^^

1pc Leki's Focus -one dagger- (PvP or bought). Weapon damage/max stamina/stamina recovery
3pc Leki's Focus -jewelry- ^^
OR
1pc Heem-Jas' Retribution -body- (Cradle of Shadows). Just swap this in and make a piece of Night's Silence on a dagger
3pc Heem-Jas' Retribution -jewelry- ^^, adds Stamina recovery/max stamina/weapon critical


BASICS OF DPS:
This game isn't like Skyrim, you can't just wail on it with uppercuts until it dies- well you can but it will be an arduous task. Because of this, you NEED to apply Damage over Time (DoT) attacks. The more DoTs you have while keeping a decent rotation going, the better off you will be. This game is also HEAVILY focused on critical damage. If you lack critical chance, you will fail to do high damage. Since every DoT tick can crit, which does about double the damage, you can see how this would add up quickly. Animation cancelling (more advanced) with a block-light attack increases DPS a lot, but drains resources quicker, so it is advised not to do this if you just start out, but be aware it is there. It is also IMPERATIVE to keep Rearming Trap up on boss fights- helps during trash pulls too- as this will increase your critical damage by an astounding 12%. If you don't feel comfortable doing a heavy rotation, just swap out a few DoTs and add in something like Camo Hunter (Fighter's Guild skill) to add 10% crit chance, just DON'T proc it as it takes a lot of stamina to use. Caltrops (assualt skill line) is also an option for AoE, but it take a lot of stamina as well.

You will be weaving in DoTs with your standard move (if it is trash pulls, don't bother with single-target DoTs, just use a volley and a breath after a trap- spam steel tornado until DoTs despawn). You will be using Bloothirst the most for single targets and Steel Tornado for AoE Trash Pulls. Group Dungeons (and eventually trials) are a lot harder than solo content, so you NEED to be aware of the red circles/cones and avoid them. If a boss is preparing for an AoE attack, get away (usually there's a pretty obvious queue for this, so roll away or block if you don't have time). Some attacks are interrupt-able. This is done by blocking and pressing the heavy attack button at the same time, this costs a small amount of stamina, but halts a cast time that would have caused a lot of damage (it isn't just the tank's job to do this). If you are in a bad spot, roll dodge away, or at the very least block it if you don't have time. This will reduce damage A LOT and help the team greatly.

Just because you have a healer doesn't mean you shouldn't have a self-heal. Vigor is a great, and one of like 3 good, self-heals stamina characters have. You NEED to use this if you take damage, or if you think you're about to take damage. If you don't know how to get it, look in the How To's section below. This skill is ESSENTIAL to stamina characters, make sure to always remember it (it's a group heal too, so don't be afraid to help the healer some). Before you use it, try to get in the habit of using Igneous Shield. This skill will not only give you 5% stamina back and 3 ult (while in combat for the ult) AND minor weapon damage, it will also increase your healing done by 25%- which helps Vigor heal even more. Don't spam the skill though, you need to keep up your molten weapons (30sec cooldown) as well, so use it when you need a big burst heal. This damage shield also scales with health, a lot of people seem to not realize that.

It's good to get in the habit of weaving in medium attacks between some moves to keep your ultimate counter going up. Since you're a DK, this is especially important to you. Whenever you (on a DK with the battle roar passive) use an ultimate, you gain some health/magicka/stamina. The bigger the ultimate cost, the greater the gain. This allows you to easily manage when you get resources back (make sure to get the fighter's guild passive for ultimate from every undead/daedra killed too). When you have the desired ultimate charged, immediately use it or save it for when you have an opportune time. Of course, don't Dawnbreaker the air, but also don't waste it on one or two mobs. Also, don't use a standard on only a weak trash pull in a dungeon. If you have full stamina, there's no need to waste it either.


HOW TO's: (this is far easier to do if you just ask around chat while having the materials you need)

How to provision/what you need---
If you lack a provisioner, it's not very hard to max that skill line. Just buy a recipe that is easy (or look around the low-level venders as they sell recipes) and buy/find a lot of the ingredient you need (something like Fish Sticks that only needs an easy to find ingredient). Continue making them until you max out the skill line (it's really that easy). Buy the CP140 recipe if you lack the potatoes for the CP150, and have at it. Make sure to have the passive to increase yield though.

How to make armor/weapons---
The traits may be expensive to research (if you lack the funds for divines, infused is the next best). If you are a beginner to blacksmithing/woodworking/clothing, either ask around in chat (make sure to have the trait gems/material if you do this though and a little compensation if they ask for it). If you plan to do this solo, simply buy/find a random trait to research as well as the desired one for your armor (researching shouldn't take very long for only 2 traits). You need 2 traits on daggers, bow and ALL the armor you plan to use. In the mean time, you can steal/grind some pieces (you need everything you find for deconstruction), and deconstruct them all. Eventually this skill line will level up to max, which lets you craft with maxed out materials. To actually make the things, you need the base material (daggers/heavy armor need ingots, bow needs wood, medium armor needs leather, cloth armor needs silk), a trait gem and a style material. You HAVE to have the style learned on the piece you want to make that style (i.e. you can't make heavy shoes trinimac style if you only know heavy gloves). Knowing shoes counts for all (heavy/light/medium) shoes though, same with destruction staff (only need to make fire staffs right now though) and swords (2H and 1H)- etc..

How to enchant---
This skill line takes by far the longest to level up (provisioning/alchemy<armor/weapons<enchanting). Because of this it is FAR easier to talk to a max level enchanter, if you don't have one, you need to farm A LOT of glyphs and nodes. Get the hireling ASAP and harvest every node you find- keep everything for now. You can enchant your armor with any level of glyph, so it's sometimes easier to keep some of the high level ones you would normally deconstruct and put it on your gear as a placeholder. Just extracting glyphs and making some/extracting them with the stuff you don't need. Keep in mind, you get A LOT of exp when you extract a glyph that was made by somebody else, so doing this with a buddy is far quicker. You also get VERY LITTLE exp when you extract your own glyph.

How to max fighter's guild---
Every kill on a daedra/undead gives you a little exp towards the line. Doing the quest line/anchors DOESN'T give you extra exp, just killing the mobs themselves does. I like to find a good public dungeon with a lot of undead and grind there for a while- it's a slow process, but it's very worth it.

How to easily level up Assault (PvP)---
This line gives you vigor (so good), so you need to do it at some point. When you enter Cyrodiil, there's a quest to get you started. You can opt out of the tutorial if you don't need it and still get the rewards. There's also bounty quests, these are for killing players, so pick one up if you plan to defend/zerg. There are a lot of ways to do this, you could find a zerg (group of a lot of people running around in Cyrodiil) and sit behind them spamming snipe/heavy attacks with your bow. You could buy some seige weapons (trebuchets for walls, ballista for players) and help defend keeps. Or you could go around fixing things (buy repair kits at a siege merchant located in every keep/resource). Masonry (looks like grey stone) repair kits fix walls, siege (looks like a blue bear trap) fixes siege weapons, wooden fixes doors. Just buy the masonry and check every wall in the keep and towers on resources. You need to spend gold for these or use some AP. Every alliance point you gain helps level up these trees. Make sure to wait at a resource/successful defense of a keep/taking of a keep until you see the AP gain.

How to level up the Undaunted tree---
This tree won't be good for you move-wise, but it offers a great passive. In order to level it up, you need to do pledges and achievements in the various dungeons. Public dungeons don't add to this. If you look in your achievements tab> dungeons, and scroll down you can find what achievements you need, and how to unlock them. This one takes a long time, and is hard to farm. It isn't imperative to level up, but it does help a little. Work towards it and don't worry about it too much.