Non meta arcanist builds? Let’s get some thinking going

Rhaegar75

moo_2021 wrote: »

Tried Hrothgar very recently. It appears the damage only happens when immobilizing takes effect. So whenever I fought against someone with immunity, there is no damage whatsoever. And that damage is already very weak.

Yep, same here: removed Hrothgar pretty quickly. Quite rightly in flagging how the damage is not exactly great to begin with

Rhaegar75

What do you think about the following:

MS: Engine Guardian

Front: Sheer venom or Deadly
Back: Powerful Assault or wretched vitality?? not sure

mythic: Death dealer's fete or Markyn

Necrotech_Master

moo_2021 wrote: »

Tried Hrothgar very recently. It appears the damage only happens when immobilizing takes effect. So whenever I fought against someone with immunity, there is no damage whatsoever. And that damage is already very weak.

hrothgars requires applying CC to the target, and the dmg scales based on the targets resistances

its not really a pve set, more of a pvp set that works better with knockback abilities or hard cc like javelin, magnum shot, fossilize, etc

CameraBeardThePirate

Rhaegar75 wrote: »

What do you think about the following:

MS: Engine Guardian

Front: Sheer venom or Deadly
Back: Powerful Assault or wretched vitality?? not sure

mythic: Death dealer's fete or Markyn

Wretched is a ridiculously stat dense set, and is even more stat dense on an Arcanist due to the +18%(!!!) recovery passive they have. I'd personally say it's better than PA, but PA is a group set as well so your mileage will vary based on your group.

fred4

Well, for what it's worth, the build I came up with on Arcanist's release consisted of something like:

5x Bone Pirate (Dubious Camoran Throne)
5x Dagon's Dominion front bar
Esoteric Greaves
1x Magma Incarnate
Vateshran ice staff back bar

This seemed to work reasonably well, but I haven't PvPed much on Arcanist and not developed it any further. The idea was, of course, to have high stamina and high stamina regen, something like 2.7K unbuffed, I think. You could, therefore, rely on the Esoteric Greaves to mitigate burst while beaming. Dagon's is very similar to Deadly, but adds slightly more oomph to Flail instead of the beam.

The beam is really cheap, especially as an Imperial. 1v1 this didn't seem bad. I love the ability of the greaves to shake off nightblade burst in IC and beam into their face. However the problem with any Esoteric Greaves build is that you don't want to dodge roll and you can't withstand attacks from multiple players, or single players that melt away your stamina with their build, such as templars. So ultimately they are not that great of a mythic. The best class for them is probably magblade, as you can disengage with Cloak and Shadow Image when your stamina gets too low. I am using them on that class. You could arguably try them on a dark dealing sorc as well, but I'm not sure.

Rhaegar75

Anything new in people’s minds?

Maybe the nerf to MDW will help shift the meta

Syiccal

Ravager works well on arcanist, doesn't take long at all to reach max stat when in combat

moo_2021

bash build is good. No burst but best sustain, pen, crit dmg and much better shield among all classes.

SandandStars

ok, best off-meta arcanist build I’ve managed… this is tricky because I refuse to use colorless pool because I think it’s broken and I get no satisfaction from beaming frozen players…

i put together a 1-bar arc build that does ok in battlegrounds. not my favorite or most competitive build, but it does well enough that it’s fun

going off-meta is tough on arc bc its insane tankiness makes it a prime candidate for the Masters Dw/Vatesh Cheesecake, but we’re going to avoid that and use Arc’s abilities for offense, which is actually a bit challenging.

runeblades are useless for anything but generating crux. fatecarver is great for killing players that cant move, but as mentioned above, thats just no way to live your gaming life. Might as well beam a target dummy.

which brings us to ceph’s flail, our primary offensive skill for pvp. generates crux, returns a little heal, and does ok damage. AND you can learn to hit ppl in pvp with it.

i’ll cut to the chase: Dagon’s Dominion buffs both Ceph’s Flail and Fatecarver directly, to the tune of 855 sd. These will be our offensive skills (along w TideK’s Gaze for pen passive+dmg). Along with Dagon’s we use Trial by Fire, cause even though we’re tanky af with runeguard and impervious ward, those nasty little nbs can incap for 11k & merciless for 20k then spam concealed out of nowhere, moving at warp speed.

bar looks like this:

runeguard of still waters, impervious runeward, evolving runemend, prag fatecarver, cephs flail, TK gaze

sets: 5 dagons d, 5 trial bf, 1 krag shoulder for pen, oakensoul ring

lover mundus for pen
jewels of misrule for mag+stam regen

I think its 3 med 3 light 1 hvy (light armor for pen) and sits close to 18k pen, maybe a bit low these days

hardest challenge on this build is learning to aim fatecarver effectively against highly mobile players. it’s tough, but it can be done. i find putting the aim assist around 50% is kind of a sweet spot. im sure it varies for ppl

and honestly, fatecarver is my least favorite part of the build. i just dont like the feeling of being locked into beaming. dont like it on templar either. but you’ll never get any kills on this build w/o learning to aim fatecarver

another weak spot is speed, which sucks.

but its tanky enough to stay in the fight, and cephs flail is actually fun to use…

El_Borracho

moo_2021 wrote: »

Tried Hrothgar very recently. It appears the damage only happens when immobilizing takes effect. So whenever I fought against someone with immunity, there is no damage whatsoever. And that damage is already very weak.

Hrothgar is fine. Colorless pool is what I rely on to proc it. There are definitely better sets out there, but I have fun with Hrothgar trapping people in other AOEs while burning them down

I've been trying out Vicious Death on the Arcanist, but not as a bomber. I can get over 12K damage on the collateral targets when players group to fight 1vX on the Arc. So far, pretty effective

merpins

I go deadly, nirn, velothi, and slimecraw. Very simple beam build.

Kartalin

SandandStars wrote: »

...another weak spot is speed, which sucks.

but its tanky enough to stay in the fight, and cephs flail is actually fun to use…

How do you handle roots and snares in this setup? I find it difficult to be successful without race against time, shuffle, or similar.

SandandStars

Kartalin wrote: »

SandandStars wrote: »

...another weak spot is speed, which sucks.

but its tanky enough to stay in the fight, and cephs flail is actually fun to use…

How do you handle roots and snares in this setup? I find it difficult to be successful without race against time, shuffle, or similar.

Mostly with break free (when it works), but the build is also tanky enough to hit impervious rw and return fire with cephs flail while waiting out the cc, which has an immobilization of its own.

Most ppl don’t like taking multiple hits of cephs flail, even though it doesnt do much dmg above 30% health.

I love the idea of using RAT for speed & cc immunity, but runegard of still waters is more valuable, imo, provides a nice burst heal when you need it and the class passives on Arc skills are nuts

Kartalin

SandandStars wrote: »

Kartalin wrote: »

SandandStars wrote: »

...another weak spot is speed, which sucks.

but its tanky enough to stay in the fight, and cephs flail is actually fun to use…

How do you handle roots and snares in this setup? I find it difficult to be successful without race against time, shuffle, or similar.

Mostly with break free (when it works), but the build is also tanky enough to hit impervious rw and return fire with cephs flail while waiting out the cc, which has an immobilization of its own.

Most ppl don’t like taking multiple hits of cephs flail, even though it doesnt do much dmg above 30% health.

I love the idea of using RAT for speed & cc immunity, but runegard of still waters is more valuable, imo, provides a nice burst heal when you need it and the class passives on Arc skills are nuts

True, you've got a lot of healing and shields in that setup which could offset this particular concern. Thanks!